Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Tantalite
A dense black iron-manganese tantalate that is the chief ore of tantalum, forming a series with columbite and mined as coltan.
mineral
Owyhee Jasper
A picture jasper from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for scenic tan, cream, and blue-grey landscape patterns.
mineral
Outback Jasper
An earthy Australian-style jasper in red, ochre, and yellow tones evoking the colors of the Outback desert.
mineral
Maligano Jasper
A rare Indonesian jasper from Sulawesi known for ghostly tube structures, brecciated patterns, and contrasting grey, red, and purple zones.
mineral
Autumn Jasper
A warm-toned jasper named for its autumn-leaf palette of browns, rust, gold, and cream, popular as soothing earth-tone beads.
mineral
Starry Night Jasper
A dark jasper trade stone speckled with pale flecks resembling a starry night sky, valued for its cosmic appearance.
mineral
Royal Sahara Jasper
A warm desert-toned picture jasper trade stone with sandy tan, gold, and brown swirls evoking Saharan dunes.
mineral
Biggs Jasper
A classic Oregon picture jasper showing layered tan, brown, and blue-grey scenes resembling desert landscapes and canyons.
mineral
Fire Agate
A rare brown chalcedony containing thin iron-oxide layers that produce flashing, fiery rainbow iridescence like trapped flames.
gemstone
Dragon Blood Jasper
A green-and-red ornamental stone of epidote and red piemontite or iron oxide, named for its dragon-skin coloring; not a true jasper.
metamorphic
Dendritic Jasper
A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.
mineral
Pumpkin Obsidian
An orange-to-rust colored variety of natural volcanic glass whose warm tone comes from iron oxide staining within the obsidian.
igneous
Wolframite
Wolframite is the historic principal ore of tungsten, a heavy black tungstate forming bladed crystals in granite veins.
mineral
Flame Jasper
A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.
mineral
Lodestone
A naturally magnetized variety of magnetite that attracts iron, historically used as the first magnetic compass.
mineral
Reptile Jasper
A green-and-black mottled jasper whose scale-like patterning resembles reptile skin, often linked to Kambaba and crocodile jaspers.
mineral
Pantellerite
An iron-rich peralkaline rhyolite, a silica-rich volcanic rock named for the Italian island of Pantelleria.
igneous
Arsenopyrite
A silver-white iron arsenic sulfide and the most common arsenic mineral, known for striking sparks and a garlic smell when struck.
mineral
Mocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstone
Landscape Opal
A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.
gemstone
Dendritic Opal
A common opal with branching, tree-like mineral inclusions that create natural fern, moss, or landscape patterns.
gemstone
Povondraite
A rare ferric-iron-dominant tourmaline that forms in oxidized evaporite settings, appearing as black to red-brown prismatic crystals.
mineral
Yellow Beryl
The yellow variety of beryl, also called heliodor or golden beryl, colored by iron and valued for its bright color and durability.
gemstone
Eltyubyuite
A rare chlorine-bearing iron garnet-supergroup mineral, the ferric analogue of wadalite, formed in high-temperature combustion-metamorphic rocks.
mineral