Hello from Geo
About RockhoundID
Last updated 2026-11-10
We help curious people figure out what they found. Free tools, honest field guides, and a photo identification app on the way.
Why RockhoundID exists
Everyone picks up rocks. On a beach, a trail, a riverbank or in the garden, a stone catches your eye and the question follows: what is this? Most answers online are either a single confident guess or a wall of jargon. RockhoundID sits in between: a few simple tests anyone can do, a ranked list of likely candidates, and a straight explanation of what the tests can and cannot tell you.
What we promise
- Candidates, never certainties. No tool can promise an identification from a few answers or a photo. We say how sure the evidence is and what to test next.
- Sources you can check. Every property in the tools lists where it came from: the Handbook of Mineralogy, university geology pages, USGS publications and the Washington University in St. Louis meteorite pages.
- Dated numbers. Any price or value on the site says when it was checked, because they change.
- No fake hype. No invented reviews, ratings or user counts. Ever.
- Responsible collecting. We point out the rules: no collecting in national parks, limits on public land, and permission on private land.
- Independent. RockhoundID is not affiliated with any agency, museum, university, lab, dealer or other app. When we name another app, we say so on the page.
Who is behind it
RockhoundID is made by Viral Labs, a small independent studio run by Viral Tandel. Viral is a software test automation engineer with more than five years of quality assurance work, and in 2026 he shipped several apps under Viral Labs. RockhoundID gets the habit he brings to testing: check every claim against a source before it ships.
How the guides are made
- Written by Viral with AI drafting tools, then checked line by line against the sources listed at the bottom of each guide: the Handbook of Mineralogy, USGS publications, state geological surveys, university geology departments and museum pages.
- Pictures are illustrations. The photos in the guides are AI-generated to show what to look for. Real specimens vary, so trust the tests (scratch, streak, magnet, weight) over any picture, ours included.
- Updated, not abandoned. When a rule, a price or a fact changes, the guide gets fixed and shows an "Updated" date under its title.
- Corrections welcome. Every fix someone sends in makes the guides better for the next reader.
Geo, our mascot, is a small geode with a hand lens and a lot of curiosity.
Say hello
Spotted a mistake, a rule that changed, or a rock question we should answer? Email hello@virallabs.app. We read everything.