Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Shelly Limestone
A limestone packed with visible shells and shell fragments, recording the accumulation of marine invertebrate remains on ancient sea floors.
sedimentary
Blue-Green Tourmaline
Elbaite tourmaline spanning the blue-to-green range, from sea-green to deep peacock hues, popular for its versatile color.
gemstone
Oolitic Limestone
Limestone built from tiny rounded ooid grains resembling fish roe, formed in warm, agitated shallow seas.
sedimentary
Larimar
A rare sky-blue variety of pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic, prized for its sea-like color and white volcanic patterning.
gemstone
Verdite
A rich green, fuchsite-rich metamorphic rock from southern Africa, prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
metamorphic
Mint Green Tourmaline
A soft, refreshing mint-to-seafoam green elbaite tourmaline, lightly colored by iron and prized for clarity and a cool, airy hue.
gemstone
Guano
An accumulated deposit of bird or bat droppings rich in nitrogen and phosphate, historically a prized natural fertilizer.
sedimentary
Mint Tourmaline
A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.
gemstone
Crystal Opal
Precious opal with a transparent or translucent body, letting play-of-color glow with exceptional depth and clarity.
gemstone
Spencer Opal
Precious opal from Spencer, Idaho, occurring in thin colorful seams that are typically cut into triplets.
gemstone
Enhydro Quartz
Quartz containing a sealed pocket of ancient water, often with a mobile air bubble that moves when the crystal is tilted.
crystal
Carnelian
A warm orange-to-red variety of chalcedony quartz colored by iron oxide, used since antiquity for seals, beads, and cabochons.
gemstoneStone Canyon Jasper
A warm-toned brecciated jasper from central California known for swirling browns, golds, and creams broken by darker seams.
gemstone
Matrix Opal
Opal in which precious play-of-color is intimately dispersed through the pores of its host rock rather than forming a solid seam.
gemstone
Rock Gypsum
A soft sedimentary evaporite made of massive gypsum, deposited when sulfate-rich seawater or lake water evaporates and concentrates.
sedimentary
Quilpie Opal
Boulder opal from the Quilpie district of Queensland, Australia, with bright color set in dark ironstone matrix.
gemstone
Bohemian Garnet
Small, intensely red chrome-pyrope garnets from the Czech Bohemian region, famous for densely set antique Victorian jewelry.
gemstoneLuxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneousAppinite
A group of coarse, water-rich plutonic rocks dominated by large hornblende crystals set in feldspar, intermediate between lamprophyre and diorite.
igneous
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
Lamprophyre
A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.
igneous
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
Eclogite
A dense, high-pressure metamorphic rock famous for its red garnets set in bright green pyroxene, formed deep within subduction zones.
metamorphic