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.
gemstoneUvite
A calcium-magnesium tourmaline that forms in metamorphosed limestones, typically dark green to brown and often in well-formed crystals.
mineralYellow Garnet
A trade term for yellow garnets, including golden grossular, yellow andradite (topazolite), and yellow-green Mali garnet.
gemstoneCherry Creek Jasper
A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.
mineralAgate
A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, famed for its colorful concentric layers and enormous range of patterns and colors.
mineralParaiba Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline famed for its electric neon blue-green color and extreme rarity and value.
gemstoneTopazolite Garnet
A rare yellow to golden variety of andradite garnet, the topaz-colored cousin of green demantoid, prized for high dispersion and brilliance.
gemstoneAndesine-Labradorite
An intermediate plagioclase feldspar spanning andesine and labradorite, marketed as a red-to-green gem, much of which is copper-diffusion treated.
gemstoneGrandite Garnet
Grandite is an intermediate garnet between grossular and andradite, common in skarns and prized for vivid green to golden crystals.
mineralThulite
A pink, manganese-rich variety of zoisite used as an ornamental gemstone, often mottled with white quartz and grey matrix.
gemstoneRutile
Rutile is a major titanium ore and the famous golden needle inclusion that gives rutilated quartz its shimmering threads.
mineralPeruvian Blue Opal
A translucent common opal from the Andes prized for its serene blue to blue-green color, usually cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstoneTurquoise
A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.
mineralNephrite
One of the two jade minerals, an amphibole prized for its extreme toughness and soft, waxy green hues used in carving for millennia.
gemstoneLabradorite
A plagioclase feldspar famous for labradorescence, a dramatic flash of iridescent blue, green, and gold across a dark gray stone.
mineralMulticolor Tourmaline
Tourmaline crystals displaying two or more distinct colors at once, including the famous pink-and-green watermelon variety.
gemstoneSerpentine
A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.
mineralBrecciated Jasper
A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.
sedimentaryGahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
mineralAndalusite
A pleochroic aluminum silicate that flashes green and reddish-brown from different angles, with a cross-marked variety called chiastolite.
mineralJadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstoneReedmergnerite
A rare boron-bearing feldspar, the boron analogue of albite, first found in oil-shale nodules of the Green River Formation.
mineralEclogite
A dense, high-pressure metamorphic rock famous for its red garnets set in bright green pyroxene, formed deep within subduction zones.
metamorphicReptile Jasper
A green-and-black mottled jasper whose scale-like patterning resembles reptile skin, often linked to Kambaba and crocodile jaspers.
mineral