Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Onyx
A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, classically black or black-and-white, long favored for cameos and beads.
gemstone
White Beryl
The colorless to milky-white variety of beryl, known mineralogically as goshenite and once used to imitate diamond and other gems.
gemstoneGirasol Opal
A transparent to milky opal that displays a soft bluish-white internal glow or sheen that seems to follow the light source.
gemstone
Agate
A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, famed for its colorful concentric layers and enormous range of patterns and colors.
mineral
Thulite
A pink, manganese-rich variety of zoisite used as an ornamental gemstone, often mottled with white quartz and grey matrix.
gemstone
Rutile
Rutile is a major titanium ore and the famous golden needle inclusion that gives rutilated quartz its shimmering threads.
mineral
Brecciated Jasper
A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.
sedimentary
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineralWehrite
An ultramafic rock of olivine and clinopyroxene, a peridotite variety common as cumulate layers in mafic intrusions.
igneous
Diabase
A tough, dark, medium-grained igneous rock with the composition of basalt, common in dikes and sills.
igneousGrandite Garnet
Grandite is an intermediate garnet between grossular and andradite, common in skarns and prized for vivid green to golden crystals.
mineral
Indian Agate
An affordable multicolored banded and mossy chalcedony from India, common in tumbled stones, beads, and meditation pieces.
gemstone
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineral
Andesite
A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.
igneous
Albite
The sodium end-member of the plagioclase feldspar series, a common white rock-forming mineral and parent of peristerite moonstone.
mineral
Ilmenite
Ilmenite is the world's leading source of titanium, a heavy iron-black oxide common in mafic rocks and black sands.
mineral
Pyrrhotite
A bronze-colored iron sulfide notable for being the most magnetic of the common sulfide minerals and an important nickel host.
mineral
Microcline
A common potassium feldspar identical in composition to orthoclase but more ordered, famous for its green gem variety amazonite.
mineral
Hibschite
A hydrous aluminum garnet (hydrogrossular) intermediate between grossular and katoite, common in altered calcium-rich and serpentinized rocks.
mineral
Green Calcite
A soft mint-to-apple-green variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral popular as soothing tumbled stones.
mineral
Blue Calcite
A soft, soothing powder-blue variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral often sold as gentle tumbled stones.
mineral
Anorthite
The calcium end-member of the plagioclase feldspar series, a high-temperature mineral common in mafic rocks, meteorites and lunar samples.
mineral
Calcite
An extremely common calcium carbonate mineral that comes in nearly every color and shows strong double refraction in clear crystals.
mineral
Caliche
A hardened soil crust cemented by calcium carbonate, forming a tough whitish layer common in arid and semi-arid regions.
sedimentary