Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Nephrite
One of the two jade minerals, an amphibole prized for its extreme toughness and soft, waxy green hues used in carving for millennia.
gemstoneExotica Jasper
Also called Sci-Fi Jasper, a Mexican jasper-rhyolite with swirling abstract patterns in cream, tan, gray, pink, and green.
gemstone
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Labradorite
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.
gemstone
Serpentine
A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.
mineral
Blue Jasper
An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.
mineralDiatomaceous Earth
Soft, lightweight siliceous rock made of fossilized diatom shells, valued as a filter, abrasive, and absorbent.
sedimentaryMarl
A soft, earthy sedimentary rock made of a mixture of calcium carbonate and clay, intermediate between limestone and mudstone.
sedimentaryMorrisonite Jasper
A rare, prized Oregon picture jasper known for blue-green orbs and scenic patterns, often called the king of jaspers.
mineral
Andalusite
A pleochroic aluminum silicate that flashes green and reddish-brown from different angles, with a cross-marked variety called chiastolite.
mineral
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
Reedmergnerite
A rare boron-bearing feldspar, the boron analogue of albite, first found in oil-shale nodules of the Green River Formation.
mineral
Vogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneousReptile Jasper
A green-and-black mottled jasper whose scale-like patterning resembles reptile skin, often linked to Kambaba and crocodile jaspers.
mineralMadagascar Opal
Opal from Madagascar spanning colorful common opal and some precious opal, including pink, green and boulder-type material.
gemstone
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Turritella Agate
A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.
sedimentary
Suevite
A rare breccia formed by meteorite impact, containing shocked rock fragments and glassy melt blobs welded together.
metamorphic
Novaculite
An extremely fine-grained, dense siliceous rock famous as Arkansas whetstone, prized for sharpening fine cutting tools.
sedimentary
Tiger Iron
A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.
metamorphic
Silcrete
Extremely hard surface rock formed when silica cements soil and sediment into a tough duricrust in arid landscapes.
sedimentary
Albite
The sodium end-member of the plagioclase feldspar series, a common white rock-forming mineral and parent of peristerite moonstone.
mineral
Alexandrite
A rare color-change chrysoberyl that appears green in daylight and red under incandescent light, sometimes called emerald by day, ruby by night.
gemstone