Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Prase
An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.
crystal
Verdelite
The classic green gem variety of elbaite tourmaline, ranging from bright grass-green to deep forest tones colored by iron or chromium.
gemstone
Peridot
The gem-quality green variety of olivine, peridot is colored by iron and is one of the few gems found in only one color.
gemstone
Chrome Tourmaline
An intensely green tourmaline colored by chromium and vanadium, prized for its vivid emerald-like color from East Africa.
gemstone
Demantoid Garnet
A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.
gemstone
Chrome Diopside
A vivid green chromium-bearing diopside, an affordable emerald-like gem mined largely in Siberia.
gemstone
Uvarovite Garnet
The rare calcium-chromium garnet, famous for its sparkling emerald-green druzy crusts of tiny crystals, the only consistently green garnet.
mineral
Yellow Beryl
The yellow variety of beryl, also called heliodor or golden beryl, colored by iron and valued for its bright color and durability.
gemstone
Tsavorite Garnet
A brilliant green grossular garnet colored by chromium and vanadium, rivaling emerald with superior brilliance and durability.
gemstone
Alexandrite
A rare color-change chrysoberyl that appears green in daylight and red under incandescent light, sometimes called emerald by day, ruby by night.
gemstone
Vanadium Tourmaline
Vanadium-colored tourmaline, including the species vanadium dravite, producing rich emerald-green hues similar to chrome tourmaline.
mineral
Green Opal
A common opal colored green by nickel or chromium impurities, usually opaque and cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstoneGreen Jade
The classic green ornamental gem, either jadeite or nephrite, valued for millennia for its toughness and rich color, especially imperial green.
gemstone
Green Quartz
A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.
crystal
Green Garnet
An umbrella term for green members of the garnet group, including prized tsavorite, demantoid, and rare chrome-rich uvarovite.
gemstone
Green Marble
A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.
metamorphic
Green Moonstone
A pale green variety of feldspar moonstone showing a soft white or bluish adularescent sheen over a greenish body.
gemstoneGary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineral
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
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.
gemstoneMatte Obsidian
Obsidian with a dull, non-reflective surface from natural weathering or deliberate sandblasting/etching, rather than a distinct type of volcanic glass.
igneousCat's Eye Aquamarine
Aquamarine that shows a bright moving band of light, or cat's eye, caused by parallel needle-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.
gemstone
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral