Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Green Quartz
A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.
crystal
Carbonatite
A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.
igneous
Amethyst
The purple variety of quartz, colored by iron and natural irradiation, prized as the classic violet birthstone of February.
crystal
Elestial Quartz
A quartz with a complex skeletal, layered surface of many terminations and etched recesses, also called skeletal or jacare quartz.
crystal
Star Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl that shows asterism, a moving star of light from intersecting sets of parallel inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.
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
Plum Tourmaline
A purplish, plum-toned elbaite tourmaline colored by manganese, blending the red of rubellite with violet-blue undertones.
gemstone
Opalite
A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.
crystal
Tachylite
An opaque, iron-rich basaltic volcanic glass formed by the rapid chilling of basalt lava, darker and denser than rhyolitic obsidian.
igneous
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
Cranberry Tourmaline
A deep cranberry-red to purplish-pink variety of lithium-rich elbaite tourmaline, prized as a rich, saturated rubellite gemstone.
gemstoneCrowley Ridge Agate
Agate found in the gravels of Crowley's Ridge in northeastern Arkansas, a stream-transported banded chalcedony.
gemstoneTri-Color Tourmaline
Tourmaline displaying three distinct color zones in a single crystal, a striking natural result of changing growth chemistry.
gemstoneQuartz Arenite
A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.
sedimentary
Cat's Eye Pink Tourmaline
Pink tourmaline cut en cabochon to reveal a moving band of light, a phenomenal gem colored by manganese with parallel inclusions.
gemstone
Coral Rock
A porous limestone built from the calcium carbonate skeletons of corals and reef organisms, the lithified remains of ancient or modern reefs.
sedimentaryGreen Sheen Obsidian
Black volcanic glass that flashes a green sheen at certain angles due to light interference off aligned microscopic inclusions.
igneous
Columbite
A black iron-manganese niobate that is a primary ore of niobium, forming a continuous series with tantalite (together called coltan).
mineral
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Coober Pedy Opal
Australia's classic light-bodied precious opal from Coober Pedy, famed for milky white stones flashing pastel rainbow play-of-color.
gemstone
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
Turbidite
A graded sedimentary deposit laid down by underwater turbidity currents, recording avalanches of sediment cascading down submarine slopes.
sedimentary
Olenite
A rare aluminum-rich species of the tourmaline group, usually colorless to pale, named for the Olenii Range in Russia's Kola Peninsula.
mineral
Latite
The fine-grained volcanic equivalent of monzonite, an intermediate lava with nearly equal feldspars and little free quartz.
igneous