Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Golden Healer Quartz
Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.
crystalCanary Tourmaline
The vivid, pure yellow tourmaline marketed as canary, a rare manganese-rich variety from Zambia and Malawi.
gemstone
Golden Beryl
The pure golden-yellow gem variety of beryl, colored by iron and valued for its clarity, brilliance, and durability.
gemstone
Lemon Tourmaline
A bright lemon-to-canary yellow tourmaline colored by manganese, among the more cheerful and uncommon hues in the tourmaline family.
gemstone
Golden Emerald
A trade name occasionally used for golden-yellow beryl (golden beryl or heliodor), the iron-colored yellow variety of the emerald mineral.
gemstone
Snow Quartz
An opaque, snow-white variety of quartz whose milky color comes from countless tiny gas and fluid inclusions.
crystal
Lemon Opal
A bright lemon-yellow opal, usually common opal, valued for its cheerful citrus color and translucent glow.
gemstone
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Siderite
Siderite is an iron carbonate ore, a brown rhombohedral mineral of the calcite group found in sediments and veins.
mineral
Mahogany Obsidian
A natural volcanic glass with rich brown and black mahogany-like swirls created by iron oxide inclusions.
igneousButterstone Jasper
A soft-toned cream-to-butterscotch jasper colored by iron oxides, prized by lapidaries for its smooth, even, opaque finish.
gemstone
Hematite
The principal iron ore, a heavy iron oxide ranging from metallic silver-gray to earthy red, always leaving a tell-tale red-brown streak.
mineral
Heliodor
The golden-yellow gem variety of beryl, colored by iron, prized for its bright sunshine hue and excellent durability.
gemstoneGondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Chromite
Chromite is the only commercial ore of chromium, a black iron-chromium oxide of the spinel group found in mafic igneous rocks.
mineral
Magnetite
A naturally magnetic black iron oxide and a major iron ore; strongly magnetic specimens are known as lodestone.
mineral
Ilmenite
Ilmenite is the world's leading source of titanium, a heavy iron-black oxide common in mafic rocks and black sands.
mineral
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineral
Feruvite
A calcium- and ferrous-iron-rich tourmaline, the iron analogue of uvite, forming dark brown to black crystals in skarns and metamorphic rocks.
mineral
Ferricrete
Hard surface crust formed when iron oxides cement soil and sediment into a rusty, durable duricrust in tropical and weathered terrains.
sedimentary
Pyrite
The brassy iron sulfide mineral famous as 'fool's gold,' known for sharp metallic cubes and a much higher hardness than real gold.
mineral
Bixbyite
A black metallic manganese iron oxide famous for sharp cubic crystals, classically found with red beryl and topaz in Utah rhyolite.
mineral
Wulfenite
A lead molybdate mineral famous for thin, brilliant orange to yellow tabular crystals, prized by collectors and an ore of molybdenum.
mineral
Carnotite
A bright yellow, radioactive potassium uranyl vanadate that is a major ore of both uranium and vanadium.
mineral