Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Jadeite

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

A titanium-aluminum garnet discovered in calcium-aluminum inclusions of the Allende meteorite, recording the earliest history of the solar system.

A calcium-magnesium carbonate mineral and rock similar to limestone but harder and only weakly reactive to acid.

A very soft sulfate mineral defining Mohs 2, occurring as selenite, satin spar, alabaster, and desert rose, used to make plaster.

A soft, porous limestone made of loosely cemented shell and coral fragments, used as a coastal building stone.

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

A blue calcium phosphate mineral with vivid color and middling hardness, the same mineral family that forms bones and teeth.

The calcium end-member of the plagioclase feldspar series, a high-temperature mineral common in mafic rocks, meteorites and lunar samples.

A metamorphic rock of calcium-rich silicate minerals formed from impure limestone or dolomite altered by heat and fluids.

A soft, colorful calcium fluoride mineral famous for cubic crystals, perfect octahedral cleavage, and fluorescence under UV light.

A water-free calcium sulfate mineral closely related to gypsum, forming in evaporite deposits and swelling into gypsum when it absorbs water.