Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Turritella Jasper

A fossiliferous jasper packed with spiral snail shells, technically a silicified gastropod limestone from Wyoming.

A metamorphic rock of calcium-rich silicate minerals formed from impure limestone or dolomite altered by heat and fluids.

A calcium-magnesium tourmaline that forms in metamorphosed limestones, typically dark green to brown and often in well-formed crystals.

Syrian Garnet is an old trade name for fine deep-red almandine, historically tied to the Syriam region and prized as 'precious garnet.'

A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.

A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.

A durable magnesium aluminum oxide gem that occurs in many colors and was long mistaken for ruby.

A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.

The classic gem opal that flashes shifting spectral colors, defined by the diffraction effect known as play-of-color.

The rarest and most valuable opal, with a dark body tone that makes its flashing rainbow play-of-color blaze brilliantly.

The most common precious opal, with a pale milky body that shows softer pastel flashes of play-of-color throughout.

Opal from Australia, the world's leading source of precious opal, ranging from white and crystal to prized black and boulder types.

A magnesium carbonate mineral, usually chalky white with grey veining, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.

A soft, lightweight, chalky sedimentary rock made of the silica shells of microscopic diatoms, prized for its absorbency and filtering ability.

A nodular rhyolite geode-like ball whose plain exterior hides a star-shaped agate or chalcedony core when cut.