Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Anorthosite
An intrusive igneous rock made almost entirely of plagioclase feldspar, famous as the rock of the lunar highlands.
igneousAlbitite
A pale rock made almost entirely of the sodium feldspar albite, formed by sodic magmatism or sodium metasomatism.
igneousTrachyte
A fine-grained volcanic rock dominated by alkali feldspar, the extrusive equivalent of syenite.
igneousDevitrified Obsidian
Obsidian that has partly crystallized over time, growing pale spherulite clusters within the black glass, as in snowflake obsidian.
igneousRainforest Jasper
An Australian green rhyolite with eye-like orbs and earthy patterns marketed as jasper, evoking dense rainforest foliage.
igneousGreywacke
A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.
sedimentaryNaujaite
A sodalite-rich agpaitic nepheline syenite with poikilitic texture from the Ilimaussaq complex, packed with blue sodalite, eudialyte and arfvedsonite.
igneousShonkinite
A dark, mafic potassic alkaline rock rich in augite with alkali feldspar and often nepheline, classically forming the base of layered sills.
igneousVogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneousFelsite
A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.
igneousFenite
A metasomatic rock formed when alkali-rich fluids from carbonatite or alkaline intrusions transform surrounding country rock.
metamorphicMinette
A dark, mica-rich lamprophyre dike rock in which biotite and augite phenocrysts sit in a groundmass dominated by alkali feldspar.
igneousSpherulitic Obsidian
Obsidian containing spherulites — small radiating spheres of feldspar and cristobalite that crystallized within the cooling volcanic glass.
igneousTonalite
A quartz-rich plutonic rock dominated by plagioclase feldspar with little alkali feldspar, closely related to granodiorite and quartz diorite.
igneousGranodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneousLujavrite
A dark, layered agpaitic nepheline syenite rich in sodic pyroxene and amphibole with eudialyte, from the Lovozero and Ilimaussaq complexes.
igneousLuxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneousRossmanite
A rare lithium-aluminum tourmaline with a vacant X site, typically pale pink to colorless and found in lithium pegmatites.
mineralGahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
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