Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Orthoclase
A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.
mineral
Feldspar
The most abundant mineral group in Earth's crust, feldspars are aluminosilicates that form much of granite and many igneous rocks.
mineral
Kyanite Schist
A mica schist containing bladed blue kyanite crystals, a marker of medium- to high-grade metamorphism of aluminous rocks.
metamorphic
Golden Healer Quartz
Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.
crystalOutback Jasper
An earthy Australian-style jasper in red, ochre, and yellow tones evoking the colors of the Outback desert.
mineral
Owyhee Jasper
A picture jasper from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for scenic tan, cream, and blue-grey landscape patterns.
mineralAutumn Jasper
A warm-toned jasper named for its autumn-leaf palette of browns, rust, gold, and cream, popular as soothing earth-tone beads.
mineralMaligano Jasper
A rare Indonesian jasper from Sulawesi known for ghostly tube structures, brecciated patterns, and contrasting grey, red, and purple zones.
mineral
Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass packed with tiny copper crystals, traditionally reddish-brown but also made in blue and green.
crystal
Quartz Schist
A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by quartz with enough mica to give it a schistose, splitting fabric.
metamorphic
Enhydro Quartz
Quartz containing a sealed pocket of ancient water, often with a mobile air bubble that moves when the crystal is tilted.
crystalFancy Jasper
A soft-toned, multicolored jasper with swirling green, mauve, and cream patterns, popular and affordable in the bead trade.
sedimentary
Black Shale
Dark, organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock formed in oxygen-poor waters, often a source rock for oil and gas.
sedimentary
Staurolite Schist
A mica schist studded with brown staurolite porphyroblasts, sometimes forming the cross-shaped twins known as fairy stones.
metamorphicPaintbrush Jasper
A scenic jasper whose flowing streaks of warm color resemble strokes left by a loaded paintbrush.
mineralSonoran Sunset Jasper
A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.
mineral
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystalBird's Eye Jasper
A microcrystalline quartz jasper marked by small concentric ring or eye patterns that resemble the eyes of birds.
mineral
Neon Blue Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline whose electric neon-blue color makes it one of the most valuable gems in the world.
gemstone
Wacke
A poorly sorted, muddy sandstone with abundant clay matrix between its grains, typically dark and deposited by turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Silver Sheen Obsidian
Black volcanic glass displaying a silvery shimmer from light reflecting off aligned microscopic gas bubbles trapped in the obsidian.
crystalReptile Jasper
A green-and-black mottled jasper whose scale-like patterning resembles reptile skin, often linked to Kambaba and crocodile jaspers.
mineral
Blue Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass colored deep blue with cobalt and studded with tiny copper crystals that mimic a starry night sky.
gemstone
Shungite
A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.
sedimentary