Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Shell Opal
Fossil shells whose original material has been replaced by opal, preserving ancient marine forms in common or precious opal.
gemstone
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Matrix Opal
Opal in which precious play-of-color is intimately dispersed through the pores of its host rock rather than forming a solid seam.
gemstone
Emerald in Matrix
Natural emerald crystals still embedded in their host rock, prized as mineral specimens that show how the gem grew in place.
gemstone
Shelly Limestone
A limestone packed with visible shells and shell fragments, recording the accumulation of marine invertebrate remains on ancient sea floors.
sedimentary
Coquina
A soft, porous limestone made of loosely cemented shell and coral fragments, used as a coastal building stone.
sedimentary
Diatomaceous Earth
Soft, lightweight siliceous rock made of fossilized diatom shells, valued as a filter, abrasive, and absorbent.
sedimentary
Honduran Opal
Precious opal from Honduras occurring in a dark volcanic matrix, where bright flecks of color flash against a natural black basalt background.
gemstone
Boulder Opal
Precious opal that forms in thin veins within brown ironstone boulders, cut with the host rock left as a natural dark backing.
gemstone
Andamooka Opal
Precious opal from the Andamooka field of South Australia, famous for solid crystal opal and its distinctive treatable matrix opal.
gemstone
Petrified Wood
Ancient wood whose organic tissue has been replaced by silica, preserving the grain, rings, and structure of the original tree in stone.
sedimentary
Marl
A soft, earthy sedimentary rock made of a mixture of calcium carbonate and clay, intermediate between limestone and mudstone.
sedimentary
Wacke
A poorly sorted, muddy sandstone with abundant clay matrix between its grains, typically dark and deposited by turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Turritella Jasper
A fossiliferous jasper packed with spiral snail shells, technically a silicified gastropod limestone from Wyoming.
sedimentary
Spiderweb Jasper
A jasper crossed by fine dark veins forming a spiderweb-like network, often a brecciated stone cemented by darker matrix.
mineral
Fossil Opal
Fossil material whose original substance has been replaced by opal, preserving ancient shapes in common or play-of-color opal.
gemstone
Koroit Opal
Boulder opal from the Koroit field in Queensland, famous for intricate ironstone matrix patterns laced with colorful precious opal.
gemstone
Turritella Agate
A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.
sedimentary
Calcarenite
Sand-grained limestone composed of carbonate particles such as shell fragments and ooids cemented into a calcite rock.
sedimentary
Emerald Crystal
The natural crystalline form of emerald, the prized green chromium-and-vanadium variety of beryl and the May birthstone.
crystal
Banded Iron Formation
Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.
sedimentary
Tiger Iron
A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.
metamorphic
Amber
Fossilized tree resin, warm and lightweight, sometimes preserving ancient insects and plant matter inside.
gemstone
Sonoran Sunset Jasper
A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.
mineral