Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Gondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Dunite
An ultramafic intrusive rock made almost entirely of olivine, representing mantle material.
igneousUrtite
A pale, nepheline-dominated plutonic rock at the leucocratic end of the ijolite series, sometimes associated with major apatite ore deposits.
igneous
Oil Shale
A fine-grained sedimentary rock rich in solid organic matter (kerogen) that yields oil and gas when heated.
sedimentary
Epidosite
A hard, pistachio-green rock composed mainly of epidote and quartz, formed by hydrothermal alteration of mafic rocks.
metamorphic
Albitite
A pale rock made almost entirely of the sodium feldspar albite, formed by sodic magmatism or sodium metasomatism.
igneousEulysite
A rare, dense iron-rich metamorphic rock composed of fayalite, iron pyroxene, and almandine garnet.
metamorphic
Scoria
A dark, highly vesicular volcanic rock full of gas bubbles, denser than pumice, common as red or black lava rock.
igneous
Coquina
A soft, porous limestone made of loosely cemented shell and coral fragments, used as a coastal building stone.
sedimentary
Basalt
A fine-grained, dark volcanic rock that erupts as fluid lava and forms most of the ocean floor and many lava plateaus.
igneous
Diorite
A coarse-grained intrusive rock with a distinctive salt-and-pepper look, the plutonic equivalent of andesite.
igneous
Hornfels
A tough, fine-grained, non-foliated rock formed by the intense heat of nearby magma baking surrounding rock at contact zones.
metamorphic
Melteigite
A dark, pyroxene-dominated plutonic rock at the mafic end of the ijolite series, made mainly of aegirine-augite with subordinate nepheline.
igneous
Ijolite
A coarse-grained, feldspar-free plutonic rock composed mainly of nepheline and sodic pyroxene, the intrusive equivalent of nephelinite.
igneous
Skarn
A calc-silicate rock formed by chemical exchange between magma and carbonate rock, often rich in garnet and economically important ore minerals.
metamorphic
Radiolarite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock built from the microscopic silica skeletons of radiolarians, often forming colorful ribbon-banded cherts.
sedimentary
Fenite
A metasomatic rock formed when alkali-rich fluids from carbonatite or alkaline intrusions transform surrounding country rock.
metamorphicTripolite
A soft, lightweight siliceous sedimentary rock made of fossil diatom remains, prized as a fine natural abrasive and polishing powder.
sedimentary
Greenstone
A general field term for green, low-grade metamorphosed basaltic rocks colored by chlorite, epidote, and actinolite.
metamorphic
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Tactite
A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.
metamorphic
Quartzite
An extremely hard metamorphic rock formed from sandstone, made of fused quartz grains that break across rather than between the grains.
metamorphic
Jacupirangite
A rare dark ultramafic alkaline igneous rock built mostly of titanaugite and magnetite, named for Jacupiranga in Brazil.
igneous
Mylonite
A fine-grained, strongly foliated rock formed deep in fault zones where rocks flowed and ground down rather than fracturing.
metamorphic