Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Gahnite

A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.

A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.

A vivid green chromium-bearing diopside, an affordable emerald-like gem mined largely in Siberia.

A warm cognac-brown to reddish-brown tourmaline, typically magnesium-rich dravite, prized for its rich whisky-like color.

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

A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.

A natural volcanic glass with rich brown and black mahogany-like swirls created by iron oxide inclusions.

A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.

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

A lustrous black titanium-rich garnet of the andradite series, found in alkaline igneous rocks like nepheline syenite and ijolite.

An earthy aluminum-rich residual rock and the world's principal ore of aluminum, often showing distinctive pea-like pisolites.

A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.

Arizona Ruby is a chromium-rich pyrope garnet from Arizona, often gathered from anthills, valued for its intense ruby-like red.

A rare mushroom-shaped tourmaline growth habit, typically magnesium-rich dravite/uvite, prized by collectors for its fungus-like cap-and-stem form.