Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Conglomerate
A coarse sedimentary rock of rounded pebbles and gravel cemented in a finer matrix, recording ancient rivers and beaches.
sedimentarySandstone
A clastic sedimentary rock made of cemented sand grains, often quartz, recording ancient beaches, deserts, and rivers.
sedimentaryDumortierite
A hard aluminum borosilicate famous for its rich denim-blue color, often forming dense fibrous masses or coloring quartz blue.
mineralMariposite
A green, gold-associated metamorphic rock made of chrome-rich mica and quartz, named for Mariposa County in California's gold country.
metamorphicRed Jasper
An opaque, iron-rich variety of microcrystalline quartz known for its deep brick-red color and ancient history as a stone of strength and grounding.
gemstoneRainforest Jasper
An Australian green rhyolite with eye-like orbs and earthy patterns marketed as jasper, evoking dense rainforest foliage.
igneousMustard Jasper
A warm mustard-to-ochre yellow jasper colored by iron, valued by lapidaries for its rich, earthy golden tone.
gemstoneMocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstoneApache Tears
Rounded nodules of translucent obsidian, named after a Native American legend, that glow smoky brown when held to light.
igneousMetaconglomerate
A conglomerate altered by heat and pressure, often with its rounded pebbles stretched and flattened into elongated lenses.
metamorphicCherry Creek Jasper
A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.
mineralSeptarian Concretion
A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.
sedimentaryOolitic Limestone
Limestone built from tiny rounded ooid grains resembling fish roe, formed in warm, agitated shallow seas.
sedimentaryLake Michigan Agate
Glacially deposited banded agates found along Lake Michigan beaches, small waterworn pebbles with concentric red and grey banding.
gemstoneRed Sandstone
Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.
sedimentaryLemurian Seed Quartz
Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.
crystalDumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstoneFelsite
A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.
igneousZebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary