Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Malaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstone
Peach Garnet
A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.
gemstone
Carnotite
A bright yellow, radioactive potassium uranyl vanadate that is a major ore of both uranium and vanadium.
mineral
Calaverite
A brass- to silver-yellow gold telluride that is a major gold ore, famous from Cripple Creek and Kalgoorlie.
mineral
Heliodor
The golden-yellow gem variety of beryl, colored by iron, prized for its bright sunshine hue and excellent durability.
gemstone
Honey Garnet
A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.
gemstone
Green Agate
A green-hued banded chalcedony, ranging from natural soft greens to brightly dyed commercial stones.
gemstone
Plume Agate
A translucent agate containing delicate three-dimensional feather- or plant-like plumes of mineral inclusions suspended in chalcedony.
gemstone
Landscape Agate
A translucent chalcedony agate whose mineral inclusions form miniature scenes resembling mountains, trees, deserts, and skies.
gemstone
Sulfur
A bright yellow native element mineral that forms around volcanic vents and hot springs and burns with a blue flame.
mineral
Titanite
A calcium titanium silicate, gem-known as sphene, famous for fiery dispersion that exceeds diamond and rich green-to-yellow colors.
gemstone
Kimberlite
A rare ultramafic volcanic rock that erupts from deep in the mantle and is the primary natural source of diamonds.
igneous
Agate
A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, famed for its colorful concentric layers and enormous range of patterns and colors.
mineral
Brecciated Agate
Agate that was shattered and naturally re-cemented by silica, creating a mosaic of angular fragments in a quartz matrix.
gemstonePaintbrush Agate
A plume agate whose inclusions form upright, bristly clusters resembling the strokes of a paintbrush.
gemstonePrase
An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.
crystal
Gold
A dense, soft, intensely yellow native metal valued for millennia in coinage, jewelry, and electronics.
mineral
Golden Tourmaline
A warm golden-yellow elbaite tourmaline colored by manganese, ranging from honey to bright canary tones.
gemstone
Ametrine
A natural bicolor quartz that combines purple amethyst and golden citrine in a single crystal.
crystal
Cinnamon Stone
The warm cinnamon-to-honey-brown variety of grossular garnet, also known as hessonite, with a characteristic swirly internal texture.
gemstone
Snake Skin Agate
A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.
gemstone
Holley Blue Agate
A rare translucent lavender-blue agate from the Holley area of Oregon, prized for its soft purple-blue color.
gemstone
Ruin Agate
A fractured and re-cemented agate whose angular broken bands resemble crumbling walls and ruined cityscapes when polished.
gemstonePeach Opal
A gentle peach-to-apricot opal, mostly common opal colored by trace iron, prized for its soft warm pastel body.
gemstone