Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Botswana Agate
A finely banded agate from Botswana known for delicate parallel layers of grey, pink, and white.
mineral
Blue Lace Agate
A soft sky-blue banded chalcedony prized for its delicate, lace-like white and blue swirling patterns.
gemstone
Achroite
The rare colorless variety of tourmaline, named from the Greek for 'without color' and prized by collectors.
gemstone
Spodumene
Spodumene is a lithium aluminum silicate that is both a major lithium ore and the source of gem kunzite and hiddenite.
gemstone
Royal Sahara Jasper
A warm desert-toned picture jasper trade stone with sandy tan, gold, and brown swirls evoking Saharan dunes.
mineral
Oregon Opal
Opal from Oregon, USA, ranging from translucent blue Owyhee opal to clear and fiery contra-luz precious opal from Opal Butte.
gemstone
Onyx
A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, classically black or black-and-white, long favored for cameos and beads.
gemstone
Lavender Tourmaline
A delicate pale purple elbaite tourmaline in soft lavender and lilac tones, colored by manganese.
gemstone
Green Opal
A common opal colored green by nickel or chromium impurities, usually opaque and cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstone
Eye Agate
A chalcedony agate marked by round, concentric ring patterns that resemble eyes when cut and polished.
gemstone
Fire Opal
A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Clear Tourmaline
A transparent, water-clear elbaite tourmaline (achroite), the rare colorless and highly transparent form of the tourmaline group.
gemstone
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Carrasite Jasper
An orbicular Madagascar jasper related to ocean jasper, showing eyes and swirls in cream, green, and earthy tones.
mineral
Canary Tourmaline
The vivid, pure yellow tourmaline marketed as canary, a rare manganese-rich variety from Zambia and Malawi.
gemstone
Acanthite
A silver sulfide that is one of the most important silver ore minerals, forming dark metallic crystals and wires.
mineral
Rosterite
An old varietal name for alkali- and cesium-rich beryl, typically colorless to pale pink, overlapping with vorobyevite and morganite.
gemstone
Outlaw Jasper
A boldly patterned western jasper in browns, reds, and golds, prized by lapidaries for its dramatic scenic and brecciated figures.
gemstone
Minette
A dark, mica-rich lamprophyre dike rock in which biotite and augite phenocrysts sit in a groundmass dominated by alkali feldspar.
igneous
Knorringite
A chromium-rich magnesium garnet of the pyrope series that crystallizes in the deep mantle and is a valuable diamond indicator mineral.
mineral
Kimzeyite
A rare zirconium-bearing garnet that crystallizes in carbonatites and alkaline rocks, first described from Magnet Cove, Arkansas.
mineral
Yellow Jasper
An opaque yellow-to-golden variety of jasper, an iron-stained microcrystalline quartz prized for warm color and durable polish.
gemstone
Wacke
A poorly sorted, muddy sandstone with abundant clay matrix between its grains, typically dark and deposited by turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Vogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneous