Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Faden Quartz
Tabular quartz crossed by a milky white thread-like line marking where the crystal repeatedly cracked and re-healed.
crystal
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
Andamooka Opal
Precious opal from the Andamooka field of South Australia, famous for solid crystal opal and its distinctive treatable matrix opal.
gemstone
Herkimer Diamond
Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.
crystal
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Tourmalinated Quartz
Clear or milky quartz threaded with black needles of tourmaline (schorl), combining quartz clarity with dramatic dark inclusions.
crystal
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystal
Rutilated Quartz
Clear or smoky quartz threaded with golden to reddish needles of rutile, also poetically called Venus hair stone.
crystal
Hausmannite
A brownish-black manganese oxide and important manganese ore, forming pseudo-octahedral crystals with a chestnut-brown streak.
mineral
Gahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
mineral
Majorite
An ultra-high-pressure garnet with silicon in the octahedral site, formed in the deep mantle transition zone and in shocked meteorites.
mineral
Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass packed with tiny copper crystals, traditionally reddish-brown but also made in blue and green.
crystal
Maskelynite
A natural glass formed when plagioclase feldspar is transformed by shock pressure during meteorite impacts, preserving crystal shape but losing crystal structure.
mineral
Ametrine
A natural bicolor quartz that combines purple amethyst and golden citrine in a single crystal.
crystal
Orange Tourmaline
A warm orange to tangerine tourmaline, an uncommon hue produced by manganese and iron in the crystal.
gemstone
Chrysoprase
A translucent apple-green chalcedony colored by nickel, the most prized green variety of the quartz family.
gemstone
Moss Agate
A translucent chalcedony filled with green or brown dendritic mineral inclusions that resemble moss, foliage, or landscapes.
gemstoneCarver Agate
A collectible Oregon plume and scenic agate with feathery red and gold inclusions suspended in translucent chalcedony.
gemstone
Chalcedony
A waxy, translucent microcrystalline form of quartz that serves as the parent group for agate, jasper, carnelian, and onyx.
mineral
Sweetwater Agate
A translucent Wyoming chalcedony filled with delicate black manganese dendrites that resemble tiny ferns, moss, or starbursts.
gemstoneAlabaster
A soft, fine-grained, translucent form of gypsum (or banded calcite) long prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
mineral
Aventurine
A translucent quartz speckled with glittery mineral inclusions that produce a shimmering aventurescence, most often green.
crystalCloud Agate
A chalcedony agate with soft, billowing cloud-like masses of gray and white suspended in a translucent body.
gemstone
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet
A synthetic garnet-structured oxide (YAG) used as a diamond simulant and laser crystal, with no natural counterpart.
gemstone