Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Gary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineralDark Green Tourmaline
Deeply saturated green tourmaline colored by iron, often so dark it appears nearly black until viewed in bright light.
gemstoneForest Green Tourmaline
A deep, rich forest-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite) colored mainly by iron, with strong pleochroism and excellent durability.
gemstoneCat's Eye Green Tourmaline
Green tourmaline cut as a cabochon to show a sharp moving band of light (chatoyancy) caused by fine parallel inclusions.
gemstoneGray Obsidian
Obsidian in gray tones, often semi-translucent, colored by light scattering and minor inclusions within the volcanic glass.
igneousPorcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentaryRadiolarite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock built from the microscopic silica skeletons of radiolarians, often forming colorful ribbon-banded cherts.
sedimentaryGreywacke
A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.
sedimentaryBotswana Agate
A finely banded agate from Botswana known for delicate parallel layers of grey, pink, and white.
mineralStibnite
Stibnite is the chief ore of antimony, famous for its dramatic clusters of bladed, silvery-gray metallic crystals.
mineralPyrolusite
A black manganese dioxide mineral that is the most important ore of manganese and a source of black pigment and dendrites.
mineralGranite
A coarse-grained, speckled intrusive rock built from quartz, feldspar, and mica, forming the bedrock of the continents.
igneousCobaltite
A silver-white cobalt arsenic sulfide that is a leading ore of cobalt, forming bright metallic cubic and pyritohedral crystals.
mineralSilcrete
Extremely hard surface rock formed when silica cements soil and sediment into a tough duricrust in arid landscapes.
sedimentaryAndesite
A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.
igneousGranodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneousSemiblack Opal
Opal with a dark grey body tone sitting between black and light opal, giving play-of-color rich contrast at an accessible price.
gemstoneWhite Agate
A white to grayish banded chalcedony, the natural base color of much agate and the substrate for many dyed stones.
gemstoneMint Tourmaline
A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.
gemstoneMint Obsidian
A pale mint-green glass sold as obsidian; most uniform light-green material on the market is manufactured glass rather than natural volcanic obsidian.
igneousBlack Moonstone
A dark gray-to-black feldspar variety of moonstone that shows blue and white adularescent flash against a smoky body.
gemstonePrasiolite
A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.
gemstoneOlive Tourmaline
An earthy olive to yellowish-green tourmaline, a muted green-brown gem variety colored by iron with subtle warm undertones.
gemstoneMint Opal
A soft mint-green variety of common opal, usually opaque and colored by trace copper or nontronite inclusions rather than play-of-color.
gemstone