Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Pyrrhotite

A bronze-colored iron sulfide notable for being the most magnetic of the common sulfide minerals and an important nickel host.

A rare chlorine-bearing iron garnet-supergroup mineral, the ferric analogue of wadalite, formed in high-temperature combustion-metamorphic rocks.

A rare strontium-dominant feldspar, the strontium analogue of paracelsian, found in metamorphosed strontium-rich and manganese-bearing rocks.

A calcium- and ferrous-iron-rich tourmaline, the iron analogue of uvite, forming dark brown to black crystals in skarns and metamorphic rocks.

A natural volcanic glass with rich brown and black mahogany-like swirls created by iron oxide inclusions.

A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.

An earthy aluminum-rich residual rock and the world's principal ore of aluminum, often showing distinctive pea-like pisolites.

A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.

A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.

A lustrous black titanium-rich garnet of the andradite series, found in alkaline igneous rocks like nepheline syenite and ijolite.