Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Blue Jasper

An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.

A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.

The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.

One of the two jade minerals, an amphibole prized for its extreme toughness and soft, waxy green hues used in carving for millennia.

A soft, earthy sedimentary rock made of a mixture of calcium carbonate and clay, intermediate between limestone and mudstone.

A medium-grade metamorphic rock rich in aligned platy minerals that gives it a shiny, easily splitting, foliated texture.

Basalt that has been metamorphosed, developing new minerals like chlorite, actinolite, and epidote that give it a greenish color.

A tough, prized ornamental gem that is actually two distinct minerals, jadeite and nephrite, revered for millennia in many cultures.

A silver-white iron arsenic sulfide and the most common arsenic mineral, known for striking sparks and a garlic smell when struck.