Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Rhodolite Garnet

A purplish-red to raspberry garnet that is a natural blend of pyrope and almandine, prized for its bright rose-violet color.

Masasi Blue Garnet is a rare vanadium-bearing color-change garnet from Tanzania that appears blue-green by day and purplish-red indoors.

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

Syrian Garnet is an old trade name for fine deep-red almandine, historically tied to the Syriam region and prized as 'precious garnet.'

A soft, reddish native metal with excellent conductivity, mined for wiring, plumbing, and alloys like bronze and brass.

A chromium-rich pyrope garnet whose intense blood-red color comes from chromium, often mined from ant hills and kimberlite weathering.

A reddish-brown rare-earth phosphate that is a primary ore of cerium, thorium and other rare-earth elements, often found in placer sands.

Pyralspite is the aluminum garnet series uniting pyrope, almandine, and spessartine, covering most red, orange, and purple gem garnets.

A highly prized Mexican fortification agate from Chihuahua, famed for vivid red and orange banding with tight, intricate patterns.

A black metallic manganese iron oxide famous for sharp cubic crystals, classically found with red beryl and topaz in Utah rhyolite.

A rare color-change chrysoberyl that appears green in daylight and red under incandescent light, sometimes called emerald by day, ruby by night.

A glacier-transported banded agate from the Lake Superior region, colored by iron into rich reds and oranges, and Minnesota's state gemstone.