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.

A barium-bearing potassium feldspar intermediate between orthoclase and celsian, found in barium-rich metamorphic and ore deposits.

A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.

Tourmaline in blue tones, encompassing iron-colored indicolite and the rare neon copper-bearing Paraiba, among the scarcer tourmaline colors.

A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.

An intensely green tourmaline colored by chromium and vanadium, prized for its vivid emerald-like color from East Africa.

A trade term for yellow garnets, including golden grossular, yellow andradite (topazolite), and yellow-green Mali garnet.

A soft lithium-bearing mica with a lilac to purple color and pearly, flaky sheen, an important ore of lithium.

A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.

A warm earth-toned jasper from Madagascar in flowing reds, oranges and golds, also called desert jasper, discovered in the early 2000s.

A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.