Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Talc Schist

An extremely soft, soapy-feeling foliated rock made largely of talc, formed by metamorphism of magnesium-rich rocks.

A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by glittering dark biotite mica, formed from mudstones under medium-grade regional metamorphism.

A foliated metamorphic rock of calcite mixed with mica, quartz, and calc-silicate minerals, derived from marly sediments.

A rare chlorine-bearing iron garnet-supergroup mineral, the ferric analogue of wadalite, formed in high-temperature combustion-metamorphic rocks.