Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Parian Marble
A pure, translucent white marble from the Greek island of Paros, the preferred stone of ancient sculptors for its waxy glow.
metamorphic
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Calc-schist
A foliated metamorphic rock of calcite mixed with mica, quartz, and calc-silicate minerals, derived from marly sediments.
metamorphic
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Carbonatite
A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.
igneous
Geode
A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.
mineral
Spiderweb Obsidian
Black volcanic glass crossed by a fine network of grey or brown veins that resemble a spider's web.
igneous
Spiderweb Jasper
A jasper crossed by fine dark veins forming a spiderweb-like network, often a brecciated stone cemented by darker matrix.
mineral
Wolframite
Wolframite is the historic principal ore of tungsten, a heavy black tungstate forming bladed crystals in granite veins.
mineral
Rhodonite
A rose-pink manganese silicate marbled with black veins, prized as a tough ornamental and occasionally faceted gemstone.
mineral
Howlite
A white, porous borate mineral webbed with gray-black veins, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.
mineral
Lace Obsidian
Black volcanic glass laced with delicate web-like veins of contrasting color, formed by flow banding and fine crystallization.
igneous
Pseudotachylite
A dark, glassy rock formed when frictional heat from fault movement or impact melts rock along narrow veins.
metamorphic
Boulder Opal
Precious opal that forms in thin veins within brown ironstone boulders, cut with the host rock left as a natural dark backing.
gemstone
Uvite
A calcium-magnesium tourmaline that forms in metamorphosed limestones, typically dark green to brown and often in well-formed crystals.
mineral
Calc-Silicate Rock
A metamorphic rock of calcium-rich silicate minerals formed from impure limestone or dolomite altered by heat and fluids.
metamorphic
Turritella Jasper
A fossiliferous jasper packed with spiral snail shells, technically a silicified gastropod limestone from Wyoming.
sedimentary
Sodalite
A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.
mineral
Breccia
A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.
sedimentary
Ruin Agate
A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.
gemstone
Feruvite
A calcium- and ferrous-iron-rich tourmaline, the iron analogue of uvite, forming dark brown to black crystals in skarns and metamorphic rocks.
mineral
Anorthite
The calcium end-member of the plagioclase feldspar series, a high-temperature mineral common in mafic rocks, meteorites and lunar samples.
mineral
Outlaw Jasper
A boldly patterned western jasper in browns, reds, and golds, prized by lapidaries for its dramatic scenic and brecciated figures.
gemstone