Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Kimzeyite
A rare zirconium-bearing garnet that crystallizes in carbonatites and alkaline rocks, first described from Magnet Cove, Arkansas.
mineral
Knorringite
A chromium-rich magnesium garnet of the pyrope series that crystallizes in the deep mantle and is a valuable diamond indicator mineral.
mineral
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Wacke
A poorly sorted, muddy sandstone with abundant clay matrix between its grains, typically dark and deposited by turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Vogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneous
Titanite
A calcium titanium silicate, gem-known as sphene, famous for fiery dispersion that exceeds diamond and rich green-to-yellow colors.
gemstone
Tactite
A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.
metamorphic
Shungite
A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.
sedimentary
Red Sandstone
Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.
sedimentary
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Quartz Arenite
A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.
sedimentary
Onyx Marble
Translucent banded calcium-carbonate stone deposited in caves and springs, prized for ornamental carvings despite its softness.
sedimentary
Oregon Sunstone
A copper-bearing labradorite feldspar from Oregon, famous for its range of natural colors and glittery aventurescent copper schiller.
gemstone
Pastel Tourmaline
A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.
gemstone
Orendite
A rare ultrapotassic lamproite carrying sanidine, phlogopite and diopside, classically from Wyoming's Leucite Hills.
igneous
Multicolor Tourmaline
Tourmaline crystals displaying two or more distinct colors at once, including the famous pink-and-green watermelon variety.
gemstone
Migmatite
A 'mixed rock' showing swirling light and dark bands, formed where high-grade metamorphism causes rock to begin partially melting.
metamorphic
Metaconglomerate
A conglomerate altered by heat and pressure, often with its rounded pebbles stretched and flattened into elongated lenses.
metamorphic
Majorite
An ultra-high-pressure garnet with silicon in the octahedral site, formed in the deep mantle transition zone and in shocked meteorites.
mineral
Metabasalt
Basalt that has been metamorphosed, developing new minerals like chlorite, actinolite, and epidote that give it a greenish color.
metamorphic
Limburgite
A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.
igneous
Lithographic Limestone
Extremely fine-grained, even-textured limestone famous for lithographic printing and for preserving exquisite fossils like Archaeopteryx.
sedimentary
Lotus Jasper
A softly patterned jasper in cream, gray, and tan whose markings can suggest lotus petals, popular for calm, neutral-toned jewelry.
gemstone