Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Shale
The most common sedimentary rock, a fissile mudrock of compacted clay and silt that splits into thin layers.
sedimentary
Rock Salt
An evaporite rock of the mineral halite (sodium chloride), the source of common salt, with a distinctive salty taste.
sedimentary
Purple Opal
A purple-hued common opal, much of it the Mexican "morado" type, valued for even violet color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Oolite
A limestone made of tiny spherical ooids, resembling fish roe, formed in warm, agitated shallow seas.
sedimentary
Pink Opal
A soft pink common opal, most famously from Peru, valued for its gentle pastel color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Phonolite
A silica-poor volcanic rock of alkali feldspar and feldspathoids that rings when struck, hence 'clinkstone.'
igneous
Outback Jasper
An earthy Australian-style jasper in red, ochre, and yellow tones evoking the colors of the Outback desert.
mineral
Molybdenite
Molybdenite is the primary ore of molybdenum, a soft, greasy, silver-gray sulfide that closely resembles graphite.
mineral
Mica Schist
A glittery, strongly foliated rock made mostly of aligned mica flakes that split into thin, shiny sheets.
metamorphic
Ice Opal
A clear, glassy, near-colorless opal resembling ice, sometimes with subtle internal flashes of play-of-color.
gemstone
Ironstone
An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.
sedimentary
Harlequin Opal
The rarest and most coveted opal play-of-color pattern, showing large, evenly spaced, angular mosaic patches of color.
gemstone
Chromite
Chromite is the only commercial ore of chromium, a black iron-chromium oxide of the spinel group found in mafic igneous rocks.
mineral
Chalk
A soft, white, fine-grained limestone made almost entirely of microscopic marine plankton skeletons.
sedimentary
Black Shale
Dark, organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock formed in oxygen-poor waters, often a source rock for oil and gas.
sedimentary
Basalt
A fine-grained, dark volcanic rock that erupts as fluid lava and forms most of the ocean floor and many lava plateaus.
igneous
Spodumene
Spodumene is a lithium aluminum silicate that is both a major lithium ore and the source of gem kunzite and hiddenite.
gemstone
Trachyte
A fine-grained volcanic rock dominated by alkali feldspar, the extrusive equivalent of syenite.
igneous
Trapiche Emerald
A rare emerald showing a six-spoked star pattern of dark inclusions, named after the spokes of a sugar-mill wheel.
gemstone
Patronite
A rare greenish-black vanadium sulfide that was historically one of the world's most important ores of vanadium.
mineral
Pantellerite
An iron-rich peralkaline rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock named for the Italian island of Pantelleria.
igneous
Hawk's Eye
The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.
gemstone
Fire Opal
A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Double Flow Obsidian
Obsidian formed from two merged lava flows, producing a stone with two distinct bands of sheen or color.
igneous