Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
White Beryl
The colorless to milky-white variety of beryl, known mineralogically as goshenite and once used to imitate diamond and other gems.
gemstone
Jasper
An opaque, often colorfully patterned variety of chalcedony quartz, popular for tumbling, carving, and jewelry.
mineral
Phantom Quartz
Quartz containing visible internal crystal outlines, formed when growth paused and trapped a layer of mineral inclusions.
crystal
Fancy Jasper
A soft-toned, multicolored jasper with swirling green, mauve, and cream patterns, popular and affordable in the bead trade.
sedimentary
Turquoise
A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.
mineral
Orca Agate
A bold black-and-white banded chalcedony named for its orca-like coloring, popular as carvings and statement jewelry.
gemstone
Apricot Agate
A soft peachy-orange variety of banded chalcedony, naturally iron-tinted or dyed, popular for warm-toned beads and jewelry.
gemstone
Matrix Opal
Opal in which precious play-of-color is intimately dispersed through the pores of its host rock rather than forming a solid seam.
gemstone
Titanite
A calcium titanium silicate, gem-known as sphene, famous for fiery dispersion that exceeds diamond and rich green-to-yellow colors.
gemstone
Grape Garnet
A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.
gemstone
Basalt
A fine-grained, dark volcanic rock that erupts as fluid lava and forms most of the ocean floor and many lava plateaus.
igneous
Melanite Garnet
The titanium-rich black variety of andradite garnet, with a brilliant resinous luster prized for mourning and statement jewelry.
gemstone
Black Garnet
An opaque black garnet — typically titanium-bearing melanite andradite — historically cut for mourning and Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Teal Tourmaline
A sought-after elbaite tourmaline in teal hues that blend blue and green, prized for its ocean-like color.
gemstone
Maligano Jasper
A rare Indonesian jasper from Sulawesi known for ghostly tube structures, brecciated patterns, and contrasting grey, red, and purple zones.
mineral
Gem Silica
A rare, intensely blue chalcedony colored by copper-rich chrysocolla, prized as the most valuable of the blue chalcedonies.
gemstone
Blue Tourmaline
Tourmaline in blue tones, encompassing iron-colored indicolite and the rare neon copper-bearing Paraiba, among the scarcer tourmaline colors.
gemstone
Blue-Green Tourmaline
Elbaite tourmaline spanning the blue-to-green range, from sea-green to deep peacock hues, popular for its versatile color.
gemstone
Appinite
A group of coarse, water-rich plutonic rocks dominated by large hornblende crystals set in feldspar, intermediate between lamprophyre and diorite.
igneous
Andesite
A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.
igneous
Paintbrush Jasper
A scenic jasper whose flowing streaks of warm color resemble strokes left by a loaded paintbrush.
mineral
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
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
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral