Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Chalcopyrite
A brassy copper-iron sulfide that is the world's most important copper ore, often showing colorful iridescent tarnish.
mineralSilver Leaf Jasper
A gray-toned jasper with swirling cream, black, and brown leaf-like patterns, sometimes with druzy or agate pockets.
mineral
Pyrargyrite
A silver antimony sulfosalt known as dark ruby silver, an important silver ore with deep red internal reflections.
mineral
Proustite
A scarlet-red silver arsenic sulfide known as light ruby silver, a striking but light-sensitive ore that darkens on exposure.
mineral
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Peacock Ore
A copper-iron sulfide ore famous for its iridescent peacock-like purple and blue tarnish; often sold as treated chalcopyrite.
mineral
Lodestone
A naturally magnetized variety of magnetite that attracts iron, historically used as the first magnetic compass.
mineralBamboo Agate
An agate whose layered, segmented banding resembles the jointed stalks and leaves of bamboo.
gemstone
Selenite
A clear, soft crystalline variety of gypsum that forms glassy or fibrous wands, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
crystal
Gypsum
A very soft sulfate mineral defining Mohs 2, occurring as selenite, satin spar, alabaster, and desert rose, used to make plaster.
mineral
Anhydrite
A water-free calcium sulfate mineral closely related to gypsum, forming in evaporite deposits and swelling into gypsum when it absorbs water.
mineral
Celestite
A soft, sky-blue strontium sulfate mineral famous for the glittering pale-blue crystal geodes from Madagascar.
mineralGypcrete
A gypsum-rich duricrust that forms by evaporation in arid soils, cementing sediment into a hard surface layer in deserts.
sedimentary
Angelite
A soft pale-blue calcium sulfate, the anhydrous form of gypsum, prized as a gentle, calming tumbled stone.
mineral
Rock Gypsum
A soft sedimentary evaporite made of massive gypsum, deposited when sulfate-rich seawater or lake water evaporates and concentrates.
sedimentary
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineral
Ilmenite
Ilmenite is the world's leading source of titanium, a heavy iron-black oxide common in mafic rocks and black sands.
mineral
Australian Opal
Opal from Australia, the world's leading source of precious opal, ranging from white and crystal to prized black and boulder types.
gemstone
Fairburn Agate
The state gemstone of South Dakota, a rare fortification agate known for tight, holly-leaf concentric banding.
gemstoneAutumn Jasper
A warm-toned jasper named for its autumn-leaf palette of browns, rust, gold, and cream, popular as soothing earth-tone beads.
mineral