Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
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
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Titanite
A calcium titanium silicate, gem-known as sphene, famous for fiery dispersion that exceeds diamond and rich green-to-yellow colors.
gemstone
Tactite
A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.
metamorphic
Shungite
A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.
sedimentary
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Red Sandstone
Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.
sedimentary
Quartz Arenite
A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.
sedimentary
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Orendite
A rare ultrapotassic lamproite carrying sanidine, phlogopite and diopside, classically from Wyoming's Leucite Hills.
igneous
Pastel Tourmaline
A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.
gemstone
Oregon Sunstone
A copper-bearing labradorite feldspar from Oregon, famous for its range of natural colors and glittery aventurescent copper schiller.
gemstone