Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Mint 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
Cacholong Opal
An opaque, porcelain-white common opal prized for its milky, pearl-like appearance and high porosity, often carved or beaded.
gemstone
Velvet Opal
Opal with a soft, velvety surface sheen rather than sharp play-of-color, prized for its gentle glow.
gemstoneSunset Opal
An opal with warm sunset hues of orange, amber, and red, prized for its glowing fiery body color reminiscent of dusk skies.
gemstone
Fossil Opal
Fossil material whose original substance has been replaced by opal, preserving ancient shapes in common or play-of-color opal.
gemstone
Green Opal
A common opal colored green by nickel or chromium impurities, usually opaque and cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstone
Red Opal
An opal with a deep red body color, often a variety of Mexican fire opal, prized for its warm, glowing intensity.
gemstone
Nevada Opal
Opal mined in Nevada, famous for fiery black precious opal and opalized wood from the Virgin Valley district.
gemstone
Cherry Opal
A translucent red opal, closely related to Mexican fire opal, glowing with a warm cherry-red body color often free of play-of-color.
gemstone
Leopard Opal
A patterned common opal with mottled, leopard-like spots and blotches, prized as an ornamental and cabochon stone.
gemstone
Pineapple Opal
A rare opal pseudomorph from White Cliffs, Australia, formed as opal replaced clustered crystals into a pineapple-like shape.
gemstone
White Opal
The most common precious opal, with a pale milky body that shows softer pastel flashes of play-of-color throughout.
gemstone
Hyalite Opal
A clear, glassy, botryoidal common opal famous for its intense green fluorescence under UV light, caused by trace uranium.
gemstone
Fire Opal
A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Peruvian Pink Opal
A soft pink common opal from the Peruvian Andes, prized for its opaque rosy color rather than play-of-color.
gemstonePeruvian Blue Opal
A translucent common opal from the Andes prized for its serene blue to blue-green color, usually cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstoneCat's Eye Opal
An opal cut to show chatoyancy, a sharp moving band of light like a cat's eye, usually in honey, green or yellow common opal.
gemstone
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Honey Agate
A warm golden to amber translucent chalcedony agate whose color and glow resemble honey, sometimes with banding.
gemstone
Orthoclase
A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.
mineralButterstone Jasper
A soft-toned cream-to-butterscotch jasper colored by iron oxides, prized by lapidaries for its smooth, even, opaque finish.
gemstoneOwyhee Blue Agate
A soft sky-blue chalcedony from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for its calming, opaque powder-blue color.
gemstone
Mookaite
A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.
mineral
Blue Jasper
An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.
mineral