Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Rubellite
The red to raspberry-pink variety of tourmaline, prized for its vivid ruby-like color that holds under both daylight and artificial light.
gemstone
Lime Green Tourmaline
A bright, fresh lime to yellowish-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite), colored by iron and trace manganese for a lively spring-green tone.
gemstone
Phantom Quartz
Quartz containing visible internal crystal outlines, formed when growth paused and trapped a layer of mineral inclusions.
crystal
Lamprophyre
A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.
igneous
Blue Kyanite
A striking blue aluminum silicate famous for bladed crystals and anisotropic hardness that differs dramatically along and across the blade.
mineral
Clear Quartz
The pure, colorless form of crystalline quartz, valued for its clarity, abundance, and piezoelectric properties used in electronics.
crystal
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystal
Hibschite
A hydrous aluminum garnet (hydrogrossular) intermediate between grossular and katoite, common in altered calcium-rich and serpentinized rocks.
mineral
Metagabbro
Coarse-grained gabbro that has been metamorphosed, partly recrystallizing into amphibole, plagioclase, and other metamorphic minerals.
metamorphic
Bytownite
A calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar between labradorite and anorthite, faceted as transparent golden-yellow gems sometimes sold as yellow labradorite.
gemstone
Shonkinite
A dark, mafic potassic alkaline rock rich in augite with alkali feldspar and often nepheline, classically forming the base of layered sills.
igneous
Ijolite
A coarse-grained, feldspar-free plutonic rock composed mainly of nepheline and sodic pyroxene, the intrusive equivalent of nephelinite.
igneous
Millerite
A nickel sulfide famous for delicate brass-yellow hairlike crystals that form radiating sprays inside cavities and geodes.
mineralDragon Vein Agate
A treated chalcedony with a network of crackled veins, usually heated and dyed in vivid colors for affordable, eye-catching beads.
gemstone
Iris Agate
A banded agate that diffracts transmitted light into rainbow colors when cut thin and backlit, producing a spectacular iridescence.
gemstone
Essexite
A dark, silica-undersaturated gabbroic rock containing nepheline along with plagioclase, alkali feldspar, and pyroxene, also known as nepheline monzogabbro.
igneous
Rainbow Velvet Obsidian
A natural sheen obsidian whose black glass displays a soft, velvety rainbow shimmer from aligned magnetite nanoparticles when polished and tilted.
igneousNaujaite
A sodalite-rich agpaitic nepheline syenite with poikilitic texture from the Ilimaussaq complex, packed with blue sodalite, eudialyte and arfvedsonite.
igneous
Kersantite
A dark mica lamprophyre with biotite and augite phenocrysts in a plagioclase-dominated groundmass, the feldspar counterpart of minette.
igneous
Kunzite
The delicate pink-to-lilac variety of spodumene, a lithium silicate prized for soft color and strong pleochroism but tricky perfect cleavage.
gemstone
Gahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
mineralMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstoneRainbow Moonstone
A near-colorless feldspar showing blue and multicolored sheen; gemologically a white labradorite rather than true orthoclase moonstone.
gemstone
Lake Superior Agate
A glacier-transported banded agate from the Lake Superior region, colored by iron into rich reds and oranges, and Minnesota's state gemstone.
gemstone