Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Cactus Quartz

A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in a cactus-like crust of tiny secondary points, also called spirit quartz.

A brecciated, chatoyant quartz with swirling blue, gold, and brown fibers that shimmer like a stormy sky.

A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.

Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.

Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.

A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.

Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.

The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.

Tabular quartz crossed by a milky white thread-like line marking where the crystal repeatedly cracked and re-healed.

Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.

A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.