Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Smoky Quartz
The smoky brown to gray variety of quartz, colored by natural irradiation, valued as both a gemstone and crystal specimen.
crystal
Grossular Garnet
The calcium-aluminum garnet species spanning green tsavorite, cinnamon hessonite, and colorless leuco garnet — one of the most varied garnets.
gemstone
Dumortierite
A hard aluminum borosilicate famous for its rich denim-blue color, often forming dense fibrous masses or coloring quartz blue.
mineral
Pumice
A frothy, lightweight volcanic glass so full of gas bubbles that it can float on water.
igneous
Pitchstone
A dull, resinous volcanic glass similar to obsidian but with higher water content and a waxy pitch-like luster.
igneous
Mandarin Garnet
The intensely glowing orange variety of spessartine garnet, prized for its pure 'Fanta-orange' fire and high brilliance.
gemstone
Pyrope Garnet
The magnesium-rich garnet famed for its intense blood-red 'fire,' historically the Bohemian garnet of Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Prehnite
A translucent yellow-green silicate famous for its botryoidal 'grape' clusters, often hosting needle-like sprays of black epidote.
mineral
Spessartite Garnet
A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.
gemstone
Charoite
A rare swirling lilac-to-violet silicate found only in Siberia, prized for its fibrous, chatoyant purple patterns.
mineral
Garnierite
A vivid green hydrous nickel-magnesium silicate that is a major ore of nickel, mined from weathered ultramafic rocks.
mineral
Kunzite
The delicate pink-to-lilac variety of spodumene, a lithium silicate prized for soft color and strong pleochroism but tricky perfect cleavage.
gemstone
Fairburn Agate
The state gemstone of South Dakota, a rare fortification agate known for tight, holly-leaf concentric banding.
gemstone
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
Pink Beryl
The pink to peach variety of beryl, better known as morganite, colored by manganese and prized for its gentle pastel hues.
gemstone
Metabasalt
Basalt that has been metamorphosed, developing new minerals like chlorite, actinolite, and epidote that give it a greenish color.
metamorphic
Morganite
The pink-to-peach variety of beryl colored by manganese, popular for romantic engagement jewelry.
gemstone
Bixbite
An old trade name for red beryl, the extremely rare manganese-colored beryl from Utah, now largely replaced by the term red beryl.
gemstoneRed Emerald
A marketing name for red beryl, the rare manganese-colored beryl from Utah, evoking emerald to convey its prestige and rarity.
gemstone
Apophyllite
A glassy, often colorless silicate that forms pyramid-tipped cubes and is famed for its pearly basal cleavage and watery clarity.
crystal
Tuff
A light, porous volcanic rock formed from compacted and cemented ash erupted during explosive eruptions.
igneous
Trapiche Emerald
A rare emerald showing a six-spoked star pattern of dark inclusions, named after the spokes of a sugar-mill wheel.
gemstone
Shungite
A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.
sedimentary
Metagabbro
Coarse-grained gabbro that has been metamorphosed, partly recrystallizing into amphibole, plagioclase, and other metamorphic minerals.
metamorphic