Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Breccia

A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.

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

A rare, dense iron-rich metamorphic rock composed of fayalite, iron pyroxene, and almandine garnet.

An iron-rich peralkaline rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock named for the Italian island of Pantelleria.

A rare breccia formed by meteorite impact, containing shocked rock fragments and glassy melt blobs welded together.

A cohesive fault rock formed by brittle crushing and grinding of rock along a fault zone, with angular fragments in a fine matrix.

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

A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.

A peralkaline rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock with excess alkalis, named for San Pietro Island's Comende district.

A sedimentary rock built from pea-sized concentric spheres called pisoids, often carbonate but sometimes iron or aluminum-rich.

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