Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Green Sheen Obsidian
Black volcanic glass that flashes a green sheen at certain angles due to light interference off aligned microscopic inclusions.
igneousGary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineral
Cat's Eye Green Tourmaline
Green tourmaline cut as a cabochon to show a sharp moving band of light (chatoyancy) caused by fine parallel inclusions.
gemstone
Emerald in Matrix
Natural emerald crystals still embedded in their host rock, prized as mineral specimens that show how the gem grew in place.
gemstone
Ruby
The red, chromium-colored variety of corundum, prized as one of the most valuable colored gemstones and second only to diamond in hardness.
gemstone
Diamond
The hardest known natural material, a crystalline form of pure carbon prized as the ultimate gemstone for its brilliance and fire.
gemstone
Iolite
The gem variety of cordierite, famous for strong pleochroism that shifts from violet-blue to near-colorless.
gemstone
Hornblende Schist
A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.
metamorphicRoyal Blue Obsidian
A deep royal-blue glass sold as obsidian; the rich blue body color is manufactured, unlike natural blue-sheen obsidian whose blue is only a surface effect.
igneous
Mint Tourmaline
A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.
gemstoneMint Obsidian
A pale mint-green glass sold as obsidian; most uniform light-green material on the market is manufactured glass rather than natural volcanic obsidian.
igneous
Prasiolite
A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.
gemstone
Olive Tourmaline
An earthy olive to yellowish-green tourmaline, a muted green-brown gem variety colored by iron with subtle warm undertones.
gemstoneMint Opal
A soft mint-green variety of common opal, usually opaque and colored by trace copper or nontronite inclusions rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Tsavorite Garnet
A brilliant green grossular garnet colored by chromium and vanadium, rivaling emerald with superior brilliance and durability.
gemstonePrase
An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.
crystal
Pyrargyrite
A silver antimony sulfosalt known as dark ruby silver, an important silver ore with deep red internal reflections.
mineralAmegreen
A natural bicolor quartz blending amethyst purple with prasiolite green in a single crystal, prized as a metaphysical heart-crown stone.
crystal
Greensand
A green, glauconite-rich marine sandstone that records slow deposition on continental shelves and is used as a soil amendment.
sedimentary
Malachite
A vivid green copper carbonate mineral famous for swirling concentric bands, used as an ore of copper and an ornamental gemstone.
mineralSard
A brownish-red to deep brown variety of chalcedony, closely related to carnelian but darker, colored by iron oxides.
mineral
Maxixe Aquamarine
A deep blue beryl whose intense color comes from radiation-induced color centers and tends to fade in light, named after the Maxixe mine in Brazil.
gemstone
Melteigite
A dark, pyroxene-dominated plutonic rock at the mafic end of the ijolite series, made mainly of aegirine-augite with subordinate nepheline.
igneousMint Garnet
A delicate pastel-green grossular garnet, lighter than tsavorite, most famously from the Merelani Hills of Tanzania.
gemstone