Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Peach Tourmaline
A gentle peachy-pink tourmaline blending soft pink and orange tones, a delicate pastel variety of elbaite.
gemstone
Pink Tourmaline
A pink to red gem variety of elbaite tourmaline, colored by manganese, ranging from soft pastel pink to vivid rubellite red.
gemstone
Hematite
The principal iron ore, a heavy iron oxide ranging from metallic silver-gray to earthy red, always leaving a tell-tale red-brown streak.
mineral
Cinnabar
A bright red mercury sulfide, the chief ore of mercury and the historic source of the pigment vermilion.
mineralOutback Jasper
An earthy Australian-style jasper in red, ochre, and yellow tones evoking the colors of the Outback desert.
mineralSonoran Sunset Jasper
A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.
mineral
Turritella Agate
A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.
sedimentaryDragon Vein Agate
A treated chalcedony with a network of crackled veins, usually heated and dyed in vivid colors for affordable, eye-catching beads.
gemstone
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Rhodolite Garnet
A purplish-red to raspberry garnet that is a natural blend of pyrope and almandine, prized for its bright rose-violet color.
gemstone
Ruby in Zoisite
A striking rock of green zoisite studded with red-pink ruby crystals and black hornblende, also called anyolite.
metamorphic
Pyrope Garnet
The magnesium-rich garnet famed for its intense blood-red 'fire,' historically the Bohemian garnet of Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Rhodochrosite
Rhodochrosite is a rose-pink manganese carbonate prized for raspberry-red crystals and banded pink-and-white gem material.
gemstone
Ceylon Garnet
Ceylon Garnet is a historic trade name for fine red almandine (and hessonite) garnet from the gem gravels of Sri Lanka.
gemstone
Povondraite
A rare ferric-iron-dominant tourmaline that forms in oxidized evaporite settings, appearing as black to red-brown prismatic crystals.
mineralWonderstone
A banded rhyolitic volcanic rock with swirling tan, red, and yellow iron-oxide layers prized as a decorative picture stone.
igneous
Zebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Crazy Lace Agate
A Mexican banded agate famous for tightly swirling, contorted lacy patterns in warm reds, creams, and golds.
mineral
Staurolite-mica Schist
A mica schist studded with red-brown staurolite porphyroblasts, including the famous cross-shaped twins called fairy stones.
metamorphic
Bixbyite
A black metallic manganese iron oxide famous for sharp cubic crystals, classically found with red beryl and topaz in Utah rhyolite.
mineralMaligano Jasper
A rare Indonesian jasper from Sulawesi known for ghostly tube structures, brecciated patterns, and contrasting grey, red, and purple zones.
mineralSyrian Garnet
Syrian Garnet is an old trade name for fine deep-red almandine, historically tied to the Syriam region and prized as 'precious garnet.'
gemstone
Kakortokite
A spectacularly banded agpaitic nepheline syenite of alternating red eudialyte, black amphibole and white feldspar layers from Ilimaussaq, Greenland.
igneous
Alexandrite
A rare color-change chrysoberyl that appears green in daylight and red under incandescent light, sometimes called emerald by day, ruby by night.
gemstone