Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Flower Agate
A creamy pink-and-white chalcedony from Madagascar containing flower-like plume inclusions that resemble blossoms suspended in stone.
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.
gemstoneCat's Eye Obsidian
Sheen obsidian cut so that aligned microscopic inclusions produce a single moving band of light, a cat's-eye effect.
igneousOrange Obsidian
Obsidian colored orange by iron oxide inclusions; vivid uniform orange material is frequently manufactured glass rather than volcanic.
igneousCat'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.
gemstonePurple Sheen Obsidian
Black volcanic glass that reveals a soft purple-to-violet sheen at certain angles, caused by light interference off aligned inclusions.
igneousTrapiche Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl showing a fixed six-spoke wheel pattern caused by impurity inclusions arranged along the crystal's growth axis.
gemstoneMint Opal
A soft mint-green variety of common opal, usually opaque and colored by trace copper or nontronite inclusions rather than play-of-color.
gemstoneAppinite
A group of coarse, water-rich plutonic rocks dominated by large hornblende crystals set in feldspar, intermediate between lamprophyre and diorite.
igneous
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Banded Iron Formation
Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.
sedimentary
Anthracite
The highest-rank coal, a hard, lustrous black rock that burns cleanly with little smoke and high heat output.
metamorphicWehrite
An ultramafic rock of olivine and clinopyroxene, a peridotite variety common as cumulate layers in mafic intrusions.
igneous
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Fenite
A metasomatic rock formed when alkali-rich fluids from carbonatite or alkaline intrusions transform surrounding country rock.
metamorphic
Pyroxenite
A dense, dark ultramafic plutonic rock composed almost entirely of pyroxene minerals, often associated with peridotite and layered intrusions.
igneous
Cordierite Hornfels
A tough, fine-grained contact-metamorphic rock containing cordierite, often spotted, formed by heat from nearby igneous intrusions.
metamorphic
Tactite
A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.
metamorphic