Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Brecciated Jasper
A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.
sedimentary
Topaz
A hard, brilliant fluorosilicate gemstone occurring in many colors, from precious golden imperial topaz to popular blue topaz.
gemstone
Lindi Garnet
Lindi Garnet is a rare vanadium-rich color-change garnet from Tanzania's Lindi region, shifting from blue-green daylight tones to purple-red.
gemstoneTrapiche Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl showing a fixed six-spoke wheel pattern caused by impurity inclusions arranged along the crystal's growth axis.
gemstone
Larvikite
A Norwegian intrusive rock whose feldspar crystals flash silvery-blue, widely used as blue pearl granite countertops.
igneous
Owyhee Jasper
A picture jasper from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for scenic tan, cream, and blue-grey landscape patterns.
mineral
Zircon
A natural zirconium silicate gem with high brilliance and fire, often confused with the synthetic imitation cubic zirconia.
gemstone
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Hemimorphite
A hydrous zinc silicate, often sky-blue, that is an ore of zinc and a collectible mineral forming botryoidal crusts and crystals.
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.
mineralGirasol Opal
A transparent to milky opal that displays a soft bluish-white internal glow or sheen that seems to follow the light source.
gemstone
Kyanite
A bladed aluminosilicate famous for having two very different hardnesses depending on the direction you scratch it.
mineral
Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass packed with tiny copper crystals, traditionally reddish-brown but also made in blue and green.
crystal
Amazonite
The blue-green gem variety of microcline feldspar, often mottled with white, prized as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Anhydrite
A water-free calcium sulfate mineral closely related to gypsum, forming in evaporite deposits and swelling into gypsum when it absorbs water.
mineralCat's Eye Aquamarine
Aquamarine that shows a bright moving band of light, or cat's eye, caused by parallel needle-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.
gemstone
Celestite
A soft, sky-blue strontium sulfate mineral famous for the glittering pale-blue crystal geodes from Madagascar.
mineral
Foitite
A rare alkali-deficient tourmaline whose X crystal site is largely vacant, giving slender dark blue to bluish-black crystals.
mineral
Sapphire
The gem variety of corundum in every color except red, most prized in velvety blue and exceptionally hard and durable.
gemstone
Star Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl that shows asterism, a moving star of light from intersecting sets of parallel inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.
gemstone
Lake Michigan Agate
Glacially deposited banded agates found along Lake Michigan beaches, small waterworn pebbles with concentric red and grey banding.
gemstone
Galena
A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.
mineral
Velvet Opal
Opal with a soft, velvety surface sheen rather than sharp play-of-color, prized for its gentle glow.
gemstone