Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Metarhyolite
Rhyolite that has been metamorphosed, recrystallizing its silica-rich volcanic material into a tougher felsic metamorphic rock.
metamorphic
Soapstone
A soft, talc-rich metamorphic rock with a soapy feel, easily carved and highly heat-resistant for cookware and sculpture.
metamorphic
Itabirite
A metamorphosed banded iron formation of alternating quartz and iron-oxide layers, mined as a major iron ore.
metamorphic
Mariposite
A green, gold-associated metamorphic rock made of chrome-rich mica and quartz, named for Mariposa County in California's gold country.
metamorphic
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstoneGrape Garnet
A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.
gemstone
Honey Garnet
A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.
gemstone
Star Garnet
A rare almandine garnet that displays a four- or six-rayed star (asterism) from oriented rutile inclusions; the state gem of Idaho.
gemstone
Green Garnet
An umbrella term for green members of the garnet group, including prized tsavorite, demantoid, and rare chrome-rich uvarovite.
gemstone
Yellow Garnet
A trade term for yellow garnets, including golden grossular, yellow andradite (topazolite), and yellow-green Mali garnet.
gemstone
Pyrope Garnet
The magnesium-rich garnet famed for its intense blood-red 'fire,' historically the Bohemian garnet of Victorian jewelry.
gemstoneMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstoneBekily Garnet
A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.
gemstoneGrandite Garnet
Grandite is an intermediate garnet between grossular and andradite, common in skarns and prized for vivid green to golden crystals.
mineral
Almandine Garnet
The most common garnet, an iron aluminum silicate in deep red to brownish-red hues, used as a gem and an industrial abrasive.
gemstone
Raspberry Garnet
A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.
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
Adirondack Garnet
Adirondack Garnet is large, dark-red almandine from New York's Gore Mountain, the world's most famous industrial garnet abrasive source.
mineral
Mandarin Garnet
The intensely glowing orange variety of spessartine garnet, prized for its pure 'Fanta-orange' fire and high brilliance.
gemstone
Bohemian Garnet
Small, intensely red chrome-pyrope garnets from the Czech Bohemian region, famous for densely set antique Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Strawberry Garnet
A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.
gemstone
Color Change Garnet
A rare garnet that dramatically shifts color from greenish in daylight to reddish under lamplight, rivaling alexandrite.
gemstone
Idaho Star Garnet
Idaho's official state gem: a dark almandine garnet showing a four- or rare six-rayed star from oriented rutile inclusions.
gemstone
Ugrandite Garnet
Ugrandite is the calcium garnet series uniting uvarovite, grossular, and andradite, including tsavorite and the fiery demantoid.
mineral