Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Covellite
A soft copper sulfide famous for its intense indigo-blue color and dazzling iridescent metallic sheen, prized by collectors.
mineral
Bog Iron
A soft, porous iron ore of limonite and goethite that forms in wetlands and bogs, historically the first iron source for many cultures.
sedimentary
Hemimorphite
A hydrous zinc silicate, often sky-blue, that is an ore of zinc and a collectible mineral forming botryoidal crusts and crystals.
mineral
Bauxite
An earthy aluminum-rich residual rock and the world's principal ore of aluminum, often showing distinctive pea-like pisolites.
sedimentarySonoran Sunset Jasper
A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.
mineral
Ilmenite
Ilmenite is the world's leading source of titanium, a heavy iron-black oxide common in mafic rocks and black sands.
mineral
Patronite
A rare greenish-black vanadium sulfide that was historically one of the world's most important ores of vanadium.
mineral
Fire Agate
A rare brown chalcedony containing thin iron-oxide layers that produce flashing, fiery rainbow iridescence like trapped flames.
gemstone
Garnierite
A vivid green hydrous nickel-magnesium silicate that is a major ore of nickel, mined from weathered ultramafic rocks.
mineral
Hausmannite
A brownish-black manganese oxide and important manganese ore, forming pseudo-octahedral crystals with a chestnut-brown streak.
mineral
Neon Green Tourmaline
An intensely glowing green tourmaline, often copper-bearing, whose electric, almost luminous color recalls paraiba tourmaline.
gemstone
Lepidolite
A soft lithium-bearing mica with a lilac to purple color and pearly, flaky sheen, an important ore of lithium.
mineral
Cinnabar
A bright red mercury sulfide, the chief ore of mercury and the historic source of the pigment vermilion.
mineral
Carnotite
A bright yellow, radioactive potassium uranyl vanadate that is a major ore of both uranium and vanadium.
mineral
Pyrolusite
A black manganese dioxide mineral that is the most important ore of manganese and a source of black pigment and dendrites.
mineral
Scheelite
Scheelite is a calcium tungstate ore of tungsten, famous for its brilliant blue-white fluorescence under ultraviolet light.
mineral
Chromite
Chromite is the only commercial ore of chromium, a black iron-chromium oxide of the spinel group found in mafic igneous rocks.
mineral
Pyromorphite
A lead phosphate secondary mineral known for barrel-shaped green to yellow crystals formed in oxidized lead deposits.
mineral
Hyalophane
A barium-bearing potassium feldspar intermediate between orthoclase and celsian, found in barium-rich metamorphic and ore deposits.
mineral
Magnetite
A naturally magnetic black iron oxide and a major iron ore; strongly magnetic specimens are known as lodestone.
mineral
Phosphorite
Phosphate-rich sedimentary rock, the world's main source of phosphorus for fertilizers, formed in nutrient-rich marine settings.
sedimentary
Proustite
A scarlet-red silver arsenic sulfide known as light ruby silver, a striking but light-sensitive ore that darkens on exposure.
mineral
Limonite
Limonite is an amorphous brown iron oxide ore, the rust-colored material behind ochre pigments and bog iron.
mineralBronze Sheen Obsidian
Black volcanic glass with a warm bronze or coppery sheen produced by light reflecting off aligned microscopic inclusions.
igneous