Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Mandarin Garnet
The intensely glowing orange variety of spessartine garnet, prized for its pure 'Fanta-orange' fire and high brilliance.
gemstone
Leuco Garnet
The rare colorless variety of grossular garnet, a near-flawless transparent gem free of the iron and chromium that color most garnets.
gemstone
Jelly Garnet
Jelly Garnet is a translucent grossular garnet whose soft, glassy, gummy-looking body gives it a jelly-like appearance.
gemstone
Green Garnet
An umbrella term for green members of the garnet group, including prized tsavorite, demantoid, and rare chrome-rich uvarovite.
gemstone
Gooseberry Garnet
Gooseberry Garnet is a soft green grossular garnet named for its resemblance to the pale, translucent green of ripe gooseberries.
gemstone
Chocolate Garnet
A rich brown variety of andradite (or grossular-andradite) garnet, marketed for its warm chocolate color and notable brilliance.
gemstone
Bohemian Garnet
Small, intensely red chrome-pyrope garnets from the Czech Bohemian region, famous for densely set antique Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Andradite Garnet
The calcium-iron garnet species, ranging from brilliant green demantoid to golden topazolite and jet-black melanite.
gemstone
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
Bekily Garnet
A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.
gemstone
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet
A synthetic garnet-structured oxide (YAG) used as a diamond simulant and laser crystal, with no natural counterpart.
gemstone
Merelani Mint Garnet
A delicate vanadium-colored mint-green grossular garnet from the Merelani Hills of Tanzania, the source of tanzanite.
gemstone
Color Change Garnet
A rare garnet that dramatically shifts color from greenish in daylight to reddish under lamplight, rivaling alexandrite.
gemstone
Masasi Blue Garnet
Masasi Blue Garnet is a rare vanadium-bearing color-change garnet from Tanzania that appears blue-green by day and purplish-red indoors.
gemstone
Ant Hill Garnet
Small, bright chrome-pyrope garnets famously brought to the surface by harvester ants on the Navajo lands of Arizona.
gemstone
Pegmatite
An exceptionally coarse-grained igneous rock, often granitic, famous for hosting large crystals and many gemstones.
igneous
Amphibolite
A dark, dense metamorphic rock dominated by hornblende and plagioclase, formed by medium- to high-grade metamorphism of basalt.
metamorphic
Charnockite
A granite-like rock containing orthopyroxene, formed at high temperatures and pressures and often classed with the granulites.
igneous
Luxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneous
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphic
Larvikite
A Norwegian intrusive rock whose feldspar crystals flash silvery-blue, widely used as blue pearl granite countertops.
igneous
Unakite Jasper
An altered granite of pink feldspar, green epidote and quartz, mottled pink-and-green and popular as a tumbled and carving stone.
metamorphic
Granulite
A high-grade metamorphic rock formed in the deep, hot crust, marked by anhydrous minerals like pyroxene and garnet.
metamorphic