Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Fossiliferous Limestone

Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.

A limestone packed with visible shells and shell fragments, recording the accumulation of marine invertebrate remains on ancient sea floors.

A coarse-grained limestone built of gravel-sized carbonate clasts, the carbonate equivalent of a conglomerate or breccia.

A soft, porous limestone made of loosely cemented shell and coral fragments, used as a coastal building stone.

Sand-grained limestone composed of carbonate particles such as shell fragments and ooids cemented into a calcite rock.

A very fine-grained, mud-sized limestone formed from carbonate mud, smooth and dense with conchoidal fracture.