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.
sedimentaryRed Sandstone
Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.
sedimentary
Lithic Sandstone
A sandstone in which the dominant grains are fragments of pre-existing rocks rather than single minerals, signaling rapid erosion nearby.
sedimentary
Quartzite Sandstone
A tough, quartz-rich sandstone cemented by silica, transitional toward true quartzite but still sedimentary in origin.
sedimentary
Tiger Iron
A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.
metamorphicAsphalt Rock
A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.
sedimentary
Rock Gypsum
A soft sedimentary evaporite made of massive gypsum, deposited when sulfate-rich seawater or lake water evaporates and concentrates.
sedimentary
Banded Iron Formation
Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.
sedimentary
Ironstone
An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.
sedimentary
Arkose
A coarse, feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that records rapid erosion of granitic source rock under arid conditions.
sedimentary
Quartzite
An extremely hard metamorphic rock formed from sandstone, made of fused quartz grains that break across rather than between the grains.
metamorphic
Turbidite
A graded sedimentary deposit laid down by underwater turbidity currents, recording avalanches of sediment cascading down submarine slopes.
sedimentary
Calcarenite
Sand-grained limestone composed of carbonate particles such as shell fragments and ooids cemented into a calcite rock.
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
Conglomerate
A coarse sedimentary rock of rounded pebbles and gravel cemented in a finer matrix, recording ancient rivers and beaches.
sedimentary
Breccia
A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.
sedimentaryEulysite
A rare, dense iron-rich metamorphic rock composed of fayalite, iron pyroxene, and almandine garnet.
metamorphic
Limonite
Limonite is an amorphous brown iron oxide ore, the rust-colored material behind ochre pigments and bog iron.
mineral
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Metaquartzite
A hard, tough metamorphic rock of fused quartz grains, formed by recrystallizing quartz sandstone under heat and pressure.
metamorphic
Limestone
A soft carbonate sedimentary rock made mostly of calcite, often packed with marine fossils and prone to forming caves.
sedimentaryPantellerite
An iron-rich peralkaline rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock named for the Italian island of Pantelleria.
igneous
Kambaba Jasper
A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.
sedimentary