Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Mint Tourmaline
A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.
gemstone
Cleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineral
Rainbow Obsidian
A black volcanic glass that reveals concentric rainbow bands of color when cut and polished against the light.
igneous
Golden Beryl
The pure golden-yellow gem variety of beryl, colored by iron and valued for its clarity, brilliance, and durability.
gemstone
Yellow Beryl
The yellow variety of beryl, also called heliodor or golden beryl, colored by iron and valued for its bright color and durability.
gemstone
Goshenite Crystal
The pure colorless variety of beryl, valued as crystal specimens and as a brilliant alternative to clearer gemstones.
crystal
Emerald Crystal
The natural crystalline form of emerald, the prized green chromium-and-vanadium variety of beryl and the May birthstone.
crystal
Ironstone
An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.
sedimentary
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Red Opal
An opal with a deep red body color, often a variety of Mexican fire opal, prized for its warm, glowing intensity.
gemstone
Patronite
A rare greenish-black vanadium sulfide that was historically one of the world's most important ores of vanadium.
mineral
Fire Opal
A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.
gemstoneDouble Flow Obsidian
Obsidian formed from two merged lava flows, producing a stone with two distinct bands of sheen or color.
igneous
Red Beryl
An exceptionally rare red variety of beryl colored by manganese, found chiefly in Utah and prized as one of the rarest gems.
gemstone
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
Emerald Green Tourmaline
A richly saturated green variety of elbaite tourmaline whose color rivals emerald, colored by trace iron, chromium, or vanadium.
gemstone
Cranberry Tourmaline
A deep cranberry-red to purplish-pink variety of lithium-rich elbaite tourmaline, prized as a rich, saturated rubellite gemstone.
gemstone
Hessonite Garnet
The cinnamon-to-honey colored variety of grossular garnet, prized in jewelry and revered as the gem 'gomed' in Vedic astrology.
gemstone
Green Tourmaline
The green variety of tourmaline, also called verdelite, ranging from bright grass green to deep forest tones colored by iron.
gemstone
Plum Tourmaline
A purplish, plum-toned elbaite tourmaline colored by manganese, blending the red of rubellite with violet-blue undertones.
gemstoneIce Opal
A clear, glassy, near-colorless opal resembling ice, sometimes with subtle internal flashes of play-of-color.
gemstone
White Opal
The most common precious opal, with a pale milky body that shows softer pastel flashes of play-of-color throughout.
gemstone
Chalk
A soft, white, fine-grained limestone made almost entirely of microscopic marine plankton skeletons.
sedimentary
Sphalerite
Zinc sulfide and the chief ore of zinc, prized when transparent for its extreme fire that exceeds diamond.
mineral