Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Watermelon Tourmaline
A striking color-zoned tourmaline with a pink center and green rind, resembling a slice of watermelon when cut across the crystal.
gemstone
Sanidine
A high-temperature potassium feldspar that forms glassy crystals in fast-cooled volcanic rocks, sometimes cut as a moonstone gem.
mineralCat's Eye Obsidian
Sheen obsidian cut so that aligned microscopic inclusions produce a single moving band of light, a cat's-eye effect.
igneous
Thunderegg Agate
A nodular rhyolite geode-like ball whose plain exterior hides a star-shaped agate or chalcedony core when cut.
gemstone
Boulder Opal
Precious opal that forms in thin veins within brown ironstone boulders, cut with the host rock left as a natural dark backing.
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
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstoneCopper
A soft, reddish native metal with excellent conductivity, mined for wiring, plumbing, and alloys like bronze and brass.
mineral
Covellite
A soft copper sulfide famous for its intense indigo-blue color and dazzling iridescent metallic sheen, prized by collectors.
mineral
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineral
Azurite
A deep blue copper carbonate mineral that forms in oxidized copper deposits, often alongside green malachite.
mineral
Malachite
A vivid green copper carbonate mineral famous for swirling concentric bands, used as an ore of copper and an ornamental gemstone.
mineral
Tetrahedrite
A gray copper-antimony sulfosalt of the fahlore group, an important ore of copper and often silver, forming tetrahedral crystals.
mineral
Novaculite
An extremely fine-grained, dense siliceous rock famous as Arkansas whetstone, prized for sharpening fine cutting tools.
sedimentary
Neon Blue Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline whose electric neon-blue color makes it one of the most valuable gems in the world.
gemstone
Neon Green Tourmaline
An intensely glowing green tourmaline, often copper-bearing, whose electric, almost luminous color recalls paraiba tourmaline.
gemstone
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Copper-Bearing Tourmaline
Tourmaline colored by copper, producing the famous vivid neon blues, greens and teals known commercially as Paraiba-type gems.
gemstone
Paraiba Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline famed for its electric neon blue-green color and extreme rarity and value.
gemstone