Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Red Sandstone

Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.

Hard surface crust formed when iron oxides cement soil and sediment into a rusty, durable duricrust in tropical and weathered terrains.

A natural volcanic glass with rich brown and black mahogany-like swirls created by iron oxide inclusions.

An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.

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

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

A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.

An opaque yellow-to-golden variety of jasper, an iron-stained microcrystalline quartz prized for warm color and durable polish.

An orange-to-rust colored variety of natural volcanic glass whose warm tone comes from iron oxide staining within the obsidian.

A soft, green iron-potassium mica that forms in marine sediments and gives greensand its characteristic olive color.

A rare iron-rich (ferric) species of the tourmaline group, dark brown to bronze-black, named after crystallographer Martin Buerger.