Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Sandstone
A clastic sedimentary rock made of cemented sand grains, often quartz, recording ancient beaches, deserts, and rivers.
sedimentary
Moss Opal
A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.
gemstone
Lithic Sandstone
A sandstone in which the dominant grains are fragments of pre-existing rocks rather than single minerals, signaling rapid erosion nearby.
sedimentary
Moss Agate
A translucent chalcedony filled with green or brown dendritic mineral inclusions that resemble moss, foliage, or landscapes.
gemstone
Feldspathic Sandstone
A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.
sedimentary
Quartzite Sandstone
A tough, quartz-rich sandstone cemented by silica, transitional toward true quartzite but still sedimentary in origin.
sedimentaryRed Sandstone
Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.
sedimentary
Montana Moss Agate
A translucent chalcedony from Montana filled with black and red dendritic inclusions that look like moss, ferns, or scenic landscapes.
gemstone
Arkose
A coarse, feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that records rapid erosion of granitic source rock under arid conditions.
sedimentary
Wacke
A poorly sorted, muddy sandstone with abundant clay matrix between its grains, typically dark and deposited by turbidity currents.
sedimentaryQuartz Arenite
A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.
sedimentary
Greywacke
A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Metasandstone
Sandstone altered by metamorphism, with partly recrystallized quartz grains, transitional between true sandstone and quartzite.
metamorphic
Peat
A soft, spongy accumulation of partly decayed plant matter that forms in waterlogged bogs and is the first step toward coal.
sedimentary
Indian Agate
An affordable multicolored banded and mossy chalcedony from India, common in tumbled stones, beads, and meditation pieces.
gemstone
Calcarenite
Sand-grained limestone composed of carbonate particles such as shell fragments and ooids cemented into a calcite rock.
sedimentary
Turbidite
A graded sedimentary deposit laid down by underwater turbidity currents, recording avalanches of sediment cascading down submarine slopes.
sedimentary
Quartzite
An extremely hard metamorphic rock formed from sandstone, made of fused quartz grains that break across rather than between the grains.
metamorphic
Metaquartzite
A hard, tough metamorphic rock of fused quartz grains, formed by recrystallizing quartz sandstone under heat and pressure.
metamorphic
Landscape Opal
A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.
gemstone
Greensand
A green, glauconite-rich marine sandstone that records slow deposition on continental shelves and is used as a soil amendment.
sedimentary
Green Agate
A green-hued banded chalcedony, ranging from natural soft greens to brightly dyed commercial stones.
gemstoneMocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstone
Green Opal
A common opal colored green by nickel or chromium impurities, usually opaque and cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstone