Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Andalusite
A pleochroic aluminum silicate that flashes green and reddish-brown from different angles, with a cross-marked variety called chiastolite.
mineral
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
Reedmergnerite
A rare boron-bearing feldspar, the boron analogue of albite, first found in oil-shale nodules of the Green River Formation.
mineral
Gahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
mineralMadagascar Opal
Opal from Madagascar spanning colorful common opal and some precious opal, including pink, green and boulder-type material.
gemstone
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Eclogite
A dense, high-pressure metamorphic rock famous for its red garnets set in bright green pyroxene, formed deep within subduction zones.
metamorphic
Alexandrite
A rare color-change chrysoberyl that appears green in daylight and red under incandescent light, sometimes called emerald by day, ruby by night.
gemstoneBekily Garnet
A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.
gemstone
Septarian Concretion
A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.
sedimentary
Jade
A tough, prized ornamental gem that is actually two distinct minerals, jadeite and nephrite, revered for millennia in many cultures.
gemstone
Patronite
A rare greenish-black vanadium sulfide that was historically one of the world's most important ores of vanadium.
mineral
Cat's Eye Tourmaline
Tourmaline displaying chatoyancy, a moving band of light caused by parallel tube-like inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.
gemstoneCat's Eye Morganite
Pink beryl (morganite) that shows chatoyancy, a moving band of light, when cut as a cabochon, thanks to parallel tube inclusions.
gemstone
Cat's Eye Beryl
Beryl displaying chatoyancy, a bright moving band of light, caused by parallel tube-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.
gemstone
Copper-Bearing Tourmaline
Tourmaline colored by copper, producing the famous vivid neon blues, greens and teals known commercially as Paraiba-type gems.
gemstone