Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Apricot Tourmaline
A warm apricot to peachy orange-pink elbaite tourmaline colored mainly by manganese, prized for its soft, glowing warmth.
gemstone
Woodward Ranch Agate
Plume and fortification agate from the famous Woodward Ranch near Alpine, Texas, known for red and pink plumes.
gemstone
Trapiche Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl showing a fixed six-spoke wheel pattern caused by impurity inclusions arranged along the crystal's growth axis.
gemstone
Cat's Eye Aquamarine
Aquamarine that shows a bright moving band of light, or cat's eye, caused by parallel needle-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.
gemstone
Aventurine Feldspar
A feldspar, better known as sunstone, that sparkles with metallic glints from tiny mineral platelets, an effect called aventurescence.
gemstone
Graveyard Point Agate
A celebrated plume agate from the Oregon-Idaho border, known for dramatic black, gold, and red plumes in clear chalcedony.
gemstone
Peruvian Pink Opal
A soft pink common opal from the Peruvian Andes, prized for its opaque rosy color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Peruvian Blue Opal
A translucent common opal from the Andes prized for its serene blue to blue-green color, usually cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstone
Black Tourmaline
The opaque black iron-rich variety of tourmaline (schorl), forming striated prismatic crystals popular as a protective grounding stone.
mineral
Quilpie Opal
Boulder opal from the Quilpie district of Queensland, Australia, with bright color set in dark ironstone matrix.
gemstone
Silver
A soft, lustrous white native metal with the highest electrical conductivity, used in jewelry, coinage, and industry.
mineral
Moss Opal
A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.
gemstone
Cobaltite
A silver-white cobalt arsenic sulfide that is a leading ore of cobalt, forming bright metallic cubic and pyritohedral crystals.
mineral
Chrome Pyrope
A chromium-rich pyrope garnet whose intense blood-red color comes from chromium, often mined from ant hills and kimberlite weathering.
gemstone
Sardonyx
A banded chalcedony combining reddish-brown sard with white or black onyx layers, prized since antiquity for carved cameos.
gemstone
Dragon Garnet
A trade name for deep wine-red garnet, typically a rich pyrope-almandine stone marketed for its dramatic, fiery color.
gemstone
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
Proustite
A scarlet-red silver arsenic sulfide known as light ruby silver, a striking but light-sensitive ore that darkens on exposure.
mineral
Peanut Wood Jasper
A fossilized, silicified wood from Australia with white peanut-shaped spots, formed where ancient driftwood was bored by clams and filled with pale sediment.
gemstone
Nordmarkite
A light-colored alkali quartz syenite dominated by perthitic feldspar with minor quartz, from the Oslo igneous province of Norway.
igneous
Noreena Jasper
A rare Australian jasper from the Pilbara with bold red, yellow, and black abstract patterns, prized by collectors.
mineral
Maxixe
A deep blue beryl with a color caused by radiation that fades in light, named after the Maxixe mine in Brazil.
gemstone
Yellow Obsidian
Yellow to golden volcanic glass; natural examples owe their color to iron, though much bright yellow obsidian on the market is manufactured glass.
igneous
Sperrylite
A rare platinum arsenide and the most important platinum-bearing mineral, forming bright metallic cubic crystals.
mineral