Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Sunset Tourmaline
A warm-hued tourmaline blending orange, pink and red tones reminiscent of a sunset sky.
gemstoneOutback Jasper
An earthy Australian-style jasper in red, ochre, and yellow tones evoking the colors of the Outback desert.
mineral
Ethiopian Opal
A bright play-of-color opal from Ethiopia, mostly hydrophane, that can absorb water and temporarily change transparency.
gemstone
Hemimorphite
A hydrous zinc silicate, often sky-blue, that is an ore of zinc and a collectible mineral forming botryoidal crusts and crystals.
mineral
Barium Feldspar
The barium end-member of the feldspar group, represented by celsian, occurring in barium-rich metamorphic and manganese deposits.
mineral
Celsian
A rare barium-rich feldspar that forms in manganese and barium-enriched metamorphic and hydrothermal deposits, the barium end-member of the feldspar family.
mineral
Elestial Quartz
A quartz with a complex skeletal, layered surface of many terminations and etched recesses, also called skeletal or jacare quartz.
crystal
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
Pelitic Schist
A schist derived from clay-rich sediments, rich in mica and often bearing index minerals like garnet, staurolite, or kyanite.
metamorphic
Carbonatite
A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.
igneous
Katoite
The water-rich end-member of the hydrogrossular series, a soft hydrogarnet found in altered rocks and known from cement chemistry.
mineral
Watermelon Tourmaline
A striking color-zoned tourmaline with a pink center and green rind, resembling a slice of watermelon when cut across the crystal.
gemstone
Ignimbrite
A rock formed from hot pyroclastic flows, often welded, sometimes containing flattened glass lenses called fiamme.
igneous
Feldspar
The most abundant mineral group in Earth's crust, feldspars are aluminosilicates that form much of granite and many igneous rocks.
mineralNordmarkite
A light-colored alkali quartz syenite dominated by perthitic feldspar with minor quartz, from the Oslo igneous province of Norway.
igneous
Shale
The most common sedimentary rock, a fissile mudrock of compacted clay and silt that splits into thin layers.
sedimentary
Cassiterite
Tin oxide and the principal ore of tin, a dense, hard mineral mined since the Bronze Age for tin metal.
mineral
Petrified Wood
Ancient wood whose organic tissue has been replaced by silica, preserving the grain, rings, and structure of the original tree in stone.
sedimentary
Jacupirangite
A rare dark ultramafic alkaline igneous rock built mostly of titanaugite and magnetite, named for Jacupiranga in Brazil.
igneous
Tiger Iron
A banded combination rock of golden tiger's eye, red jasper, and metallic hematite, formed in ancient iron deposits.
metamorphic
Opalite
A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.
crystalDragon Blood Jasper
A green-and-red ornamental stone of epidote and red piemontite or iron oxide, named for its dragon-skin coloring; not a true jasper.
metamorphic
Calcarenite
Sand-grained limestone composed of carbonate particles such as shell fragments and ooids cemented into a calcite rock.
sedimentary
Black Shale
Dark, organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock formed in oxygen-poor waters, often a source rock for oil and gas.
sedimentary