Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Danburite
A glassy calcium borosilicate forming wedge-tipped prismatic crystals, usually colorless to pale yellow or pink, sometimes faceted as a gem.
crystalGrandite Garnet
Grandite is an intermediate garnet between grossular and andradite, common in skarns and prized for vivid green to golden crystals.
mineralMulticolor Tourmaline
Tourmaline crystals displaying two or more distinct colors at once, including the famous pink-and-green watermelon variety.
gemstone
Uvite
A calcium-magnesium tourmaline that forms in metamorphosed limestones, typically dark green to brown and often in well-formed crystals.
mineral
Gahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
mineral
Devitrified Obsidian
Obsidian that has partly crystallized over time, growing pale spherulite clusters within the black glass, as in snowflake obsidian.
igneousFrost Agate
A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.
gemstone
White Obsidian
A pale, partly crystallized volcanic glass; genuinely white obsidian is uncommon and usually reflects devitrification or spherulitic growth in the glass.
igneousFeather Jasper
A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.
mineral
Lime Green Tourmaline
A bright, fresh lime to yellowish-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite), colored by iron and trace manganese for a lively spring-green tone.
gemstone
Moss Opal
A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.
gemstoneSesame Jasper
A finely speckled pale jasper trade stone named for its sesame-seed-like flecks, closely related to Kiwi Jasper.
mineralDendritic Jasper
A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.
mineral
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstone
Bismuthinite
A soft lead-gray bismuth sulfide that is an important ore of bismuth, forming metallic needle-like and bladed crystals.
mineralLemurian Seed Quartz
Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.
crystal
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineral
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Sylvanite
A silver-white gold-silver telluride and important gold-silver ore, noted for crystals arranged in writing-like graphic patterns.
mineralParticolored Tourmaline
A tourmaline displaying two or more distinct colors in a single crystal, prized for natural color zoning like watermelon and bicolor stones.
gemstone
Faden Quartz
Tabular quartz crossed by a milky white thread-like line marking where the crystal repeatedly cracked and re-healed.
crystal
Pineapple Opal
A rare opal pseudomorph from White Cliffs, Australia, formed as opal replaced clustered crystals into a pineapple-like shape.
gemstone
Chrome Diopside
A vivid green chromium-bearing diopside, an affordable emerald-like gem mined largely in Siberia.
gemstone
Cactus Quartz
A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in a cactus-like crust of tiny secondary points, also called spirit quartz.
crystal