Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Tiger Iron

A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.

Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.

The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.

A golden-brown chatoyant quartz with a shimmering silky band of light, formed when quartz replaces fibrous crocidolite.

A banded rhyolitic volcanic rock with swirling tan, red, and yellow iron-oxide layers prized as a decorative picture stone.

A deep green-and-black stromatolitic jasper, essentially Kambaba Jasper, with circular eye patterns resembling crocodile skin.

A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.

A brecciated, chatoyant quartz with swirling blue, gold, and brown fibers that shimmer like a stormy sky.

A yellow to golden banded chalcedony colored by iron, ranging from natural honey tones to dyed commercial stones.

A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.

An opaque jasper from the Cave Creek area of Arizona, prized for earthy mottled and banded patterns in warm desert tones.

An opaque brown chalcedony whose iron-stained banding mimics deserts, dunes, and distant mountain skylines.

A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.

A red-toned banded chalcedony colored by iron oxides, ranging from natural carnelian-like reds to heat-treated stones.

A deep red banded agate colored by iron oxides, valued as a vivid red lapidary and jewelry stone.