Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Phyllite

A fine-grained foliated metamorphic rock between slate and schist, recognized by its silky silvery sheen and wavy, crinkled surfaces.

A dark, foliated schist rich in graphite that leaves a grey-black mark and forms from metamorphosed carbon-rich sediments.

A brecciated, chatoyant quartz with swirling blue, gold, and brown fibers that shimmer like a stormy sky.

A translucent apple-green chalcedony colored by nickel, the most prized green variety of the quartz family.

A microcrystalline quartz jasper marked by small concentric ring or eye patterns that resemble the eyes of birds.

A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, classically black or black-and-white, long favored for cameos and beads.

A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, famed for its colorful concentric layers and enormous range of patterns and colors.

Rutile is a major titanium ore and the famous golden needle inclusion that gives rutilated quartz its shimmering threads.

A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.

The classic green ornamental gem, either jadeite or nephrite, valued for millennia for its toughness and rich color, especially imperial green.

The serene blue-to-sea-green variety of beryl, aquamarine is a durable gemstone colored by trace iron and birthstone for March.

The blue color variety of beryl, ranging from pale sky tones to rich sea-blue, best known in its finest grades as aquamarine.

A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.