Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Elbaite
The lithium-rich tourmaline species responsible for nearly all gem tourmaline, occurring in every color of the rainbow.
mineral
Black Garnet
An opaque black garnet — typically titanium-bearing melanite andradite — historically cut for mourning and Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Apophyllite
A glassy, often colorless silicate that forms pyramid-tipped cubes and is famed for its pearly basal cleavage and watery clarity.
crystal
Oregon Sunstone
A copper-bearing labradorite feldspar from Oregon, famous for its range of natural colors and glittery aventurescent copper schiller.
gemstone
Honey Garnet
A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.
gemstone
Tanzanite
A blue-violet zoisite found only in Tanzania, famous for its vivid trichroic color and rarity.
gemstone
Vanadium Tourmaline
Vanadium-colored tourmaline, including the species vanadium dravite, producing rich emerald-green hues similar to chrome tourmaline.
mineral
Olenite
A rare aluminum-rich species of the tourmaline group, usually colorless to pale, named for the Olenii Range in Russia's Kola Peninsula.
mineral
Phosphorite
Phosphate-rich sedimentary rock, the world's main source of phosphorus for fertilizers, formed in nutrient-rich marine settings.
sedimentary
Aventurine Feldspar
A feldspar, better known as sunstone, that sparkles with metallic glints from tiny mineral platelets, an effect called aventurescence.
gemstone
Charoite
A rare swirling lilac-to-violet silicate found only in Siberia, prized for its fibrous, chatoyant purple patterns.
mineral
Nephrite
One of the two jade minerals, an amphibole prized for its extreme toughness and soft, waxy green hues used in carving for millennia.
gemstone
Hibschite
A hydrous aluminum garnet (hydrogrossular) intermediate between grossular and katoite, common in altered calcium-rich and serpentinized rocks.
mineral
Obsidian
A glassy, jet-black volcanic rock formed when lava cools too fast to crystallize, prized for razor-sharp conchoidal edges.
igneousKnorringite
A chromium-rich magnesium garnet of the pyrope series that crystallizes in the deep mantle and is a valuable diamond indicator mineral.
mineralFrost Agate
A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.
gemstone
Snowflake Obsidian
A black volcanic glass speckled with gray-white cristobalite snowflakes, formed as obsidian begins to crystallize.
igneousLace Obsidian
Black volcanic glass laced with delicate web-like veins of contrasting color, formed by flow banding and fine crystallization.
igneous
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineralCloudy Obsidian
Obsidian with a hazy, cloud-like translucency caused by uneven distribution of tiny bubbles or incipient crystallites in the glass.
igneous
Diamond
The hardest known natural material, a crystalline form of pure carbon prized as the ultimate gemstone for its brilliance and fire.
gemstoneLeopard Obsidian
Black volcanic glass marked with rounded spots and patches that resemble a leopard's coat, caused by spherulitic crystallization.
igneous
White Obsidian
A pale, partly crystallized volcanic glass; genuinely white obsidian is uncommon and usually reflects devitrification or spherulitic growth in the glass.
igneous