Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Shungite

A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.

A precious opal pattern made of tiny, densely packed pinpoint flashes of play-of-color, like sparkling speckles across the stone.

A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.

A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.

A deep, rich forest-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite) colored mainly by iron, with strong pleochroism and excellent durability.

A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.

The colorless to milky-white variety of beryl, known mineralogically as goshenite and once used to imitate diamond and other gems.