Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Cerussite
A dense lead carbonate mineral forming brilliant colorless to white crystals, an important ore of lead and a favorite of collectors.
mineral
Wulfenite
A lead molybdate mineral famous for thin, brilliant orange to yellow tabular crystals, prized by collectors and an ore of molybdenum.
mineral
Crocoite
A striking lead chromate mineral prized for its brilliant orange-red prismatic crystals, with the finest specimens from Tasmania.
mineral
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
Fluorite
A soft, colorful calcium fluoride mineral famous for cubic crystals, perfect octahedral cleavage, and fluorescence under UV light.
mineral
White Beryl
The colorless to milky-white variety of beryl, known mineralogically as goshenite and once used to imitate diamond and other gems.
gemstone
Water Opal
A transparent, colorless opal that looks like water or jelly, sometimes flashing subtle play-of-color from within.
gemstone
Zincite
A rare zinc oxide best known for its deep red to orange color, classically from Franklin, New Jersey, and as colorful man-made crystals.
mineral
Tangerine Quartz
Clear quartz coated with orange-red hematite, giving points a vivid tangerine color, mainly from Brazil.
crystal
Spodumene
Spodumene is a lithium aluminum silicate that is both a major lithium ore and the source of gem kunzite and hiddenite.
gemstone
Buergerite
A rare iron-rich (ferric) species of the tourmaline group, dark brown to bronze-black, named after crystallographer Martin Buerger.
mineral
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Scepter Quartz
Quartz with a wider crystal 'cap' that grew over a narrower stem, forming a natural scepter or mushroom shape.
crystal
Golden Healer Quartz
Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.
crystal
Fire Opal
A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Tibetan Quartz
Clear quartz mined in the Himalayan region, often double-terminated and containing dark hematite or carbon inclusions.
crystal
Green Quartz
A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.
crystal
Spirit Quartz
A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in tiny druzy points, also called cactus or fairy quartz.
crystal
Selenite
A clear, soft crystalline variety of gypsum that forms glassy or fibrous wands, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
crystal
Leopard Skin Jasper
A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Elestial Quartz
A quartz with a complex skeletal, layered surface of many terminations and etched recesses, also called skeletal or jacare quartz.
crystal
Mexican Fire Opal
A transparent to translucent opal prized for its glowing orange-to-red body color, mined chiefly in the volcanic highlands of Mexico.
gemstoneBanalsite
A rare barium-sodium aluminosilicate of the feldspar group, found chiefly in metamorphosed manganese ore deposits.
mineral
Tourmalinated Quartz
Clear or milky quartz threaded with black needles of tourmaline (schorl), combining quartz clarity with dramatic dark inclusions.
crystal