Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Moldavite
A rare forest-green natural glass formed by a meteorite impact about 15 million years ago, found mainly in the Czech Republic.
gemstone
Asphalt Rock
A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.
sedimentary
Fossiliferous Limestone
Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.
sedimentary
Feldspathic Sandstone
A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.
sedimentary
Pyrolusite
A black manganese dioxide mineral that is the most important ore of manganese and a source of black pigment and dendrites.
mineral
Cave Creek Jasper
An opaque jasper from the Cave Creek area of Arizona, prized for earthy mottled and banded patterns in warm desert tones.
mineral
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Green Calcite
A soft mint-to-apple-green variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral popular as soothing tumbled stones.
mineral
Acanthite
A silver sulfide that is one of the most important silver ore minerals, forming dark metallic crystals and wires.
mineral
Honey Calcite
A warm golden-to-amber variety of calcite, a soft calcium carbonate mineral valued for its honeyed glow and easy carving.
mineral
Celestite
A soft, sky-blue strontium sulfate mineral famous for the glittering pale-blue crystal geodes from Madagascar.
mineral
Azurite
A deep blue copper carbonate mineral that forms in oxidized copper deposits, often alongside green malachite.
mineral
Willow Creek Jasper
A prized Idaho jasper known for porcelain-smooth pastel pinks, creams, and greens in soft swirling, orbicular patterns.
mineral
Cherry Creek Jasper
A landscape-patterned Chinese jasper prized for warm cherry-red, cream, and green bands resembling painted scenery.
mineral
Blue Calcite
A soft, soothing powder-blue variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral often sold as gentle tumbled stones.
mineral
Travertine
A banded, porous limestone deposited by mineral springs, prized as a warm-toned natural building and tile stone.
sedimentary
Strontium Feldspar
Feldspar in which strontium dominates the large cation site, represented mainly by the rare mineral slawsonite.
mineral
Hemimorphite
A hydrous zinc silicate, often sky-blue, that is an ore of zinc and a collectible mineral forming botryoidal crusts and crystals.
mineral
Emerald in Matrix
Natural emerald crystals still embedded in their host rock, prized as mineral specimens that show how the gem grew in place.
gemstone
Arsenopyrite
A silver-white iron arsenic sulfide and the most common arsenic mineral, known for striking sparks and a garlic smell when struck.
mineral
Dallasite Jasper
A green-and-white volcanic breccia from Vancouver Island, cemented by jasper and rich in epidote, popular as a regional lapidary stone.
gemstone
Vogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneous
Urtite
A pale, nepheline-dominated plutonic rock at the leucocratic end of the ijolite series, sometimes associated with major apatite ore deposits.
igneous
Bekily Garnet
A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.
gemstone