Hello from Geo

About RockhoundID

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 that builds friendly AI-powered apps. The guides are written by the RockhoundID team and checked against the sources listed at the bottom of each guide. 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 viral.b.tandel@gmail.com. We read everything.