Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Yellow Labradorite
A transparent yellow to golden gem variety of labradorite feldspar, usually faceted to show its clear, warm color.
gemstoneBostonite
A fine-grained, feldspar-rich dike rock with a trachytic texture, essentially a hypabyssal equivalent of trachyte or syenite.
igneousMoonstone
A feldspar gem famous for adularescence, a floating blue-white glow that shimmers across the stone like moonlight.
gemstoneLimburgite
A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.
igneousCleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineralLuxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneousSyenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneousBelomorite
A regional Russian name for a moonstone-like plagioclase from the White Sea coast, prized for its bluish, slightly iridescent schiller.
gemstoneGreen Moonstone
A pale green variety of feldspar moonstone showing a soft white or bluish adularescent sheen over a greenish body.
gemstonePorphyritic Obsidian
Natural volcanic glass speckled with embedded mineral crystals (phenocrysts) such as feldspar or cristobalite that grew before the lava chilled.
igneousWhite Moonstone
The classic moonstone: a milky-white feldspar showing the prized floating blue-to-silver adularescent glow that gives the gem its name.
gemstoneGrey Moonstone
A smoky gray feldspar moonstone, often called new moon stone, showing a silvery-blue adularescent sheen over a translucent gray body.
gemstoneCat's Eye Moonstone
A moonstone variety displaying a moving band of light (chatoyancy) across its surface in addition to the classic moonstone glow.
gemstoneCat's Eye Labradorite
A labradorite feldspar cut to show a moving band of light (chatoyancy), sometimes combined with labradorescent color flashes.
gemstoneLarvikite
A Norwegian intrusive rock whose feldspar crystals flash silvery-blue, widely used as blue pearl granite countertops.
igneousFelsite
A general term for light-colored, fine-grained volcanic rocks rich in quartz and feldspar, like rhyolite.
igneousPhonolite
A silica-poor volcanic rock of alkali feldspar and feldspathoids that rings when struck, hence 'clinkstone.'
igneousAnorthosite
An intrusive igneous rock made almost entirely of plagioclase feldspar, famous as the rock of the lunar highlands.
igneousDalmatian Stone
A cream-colored feldspar-and-quartz rock peppered with dark spots, named for its resemblance to a Dalmatian dog.
igneousKhondalite
A high-grade metamorphic gneiss of garnet, sillimanite, quartz, and graphite, derived from ancient aluminous sediments.
metamorphicVogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneousGranodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneousBlue Pearl Granite
A Norwegian larvikite dimension stone prized for its shimmering blue iridescent feldspar crystals.
igneousFenite
A metasomatic rock formed when alkali-rich fluids from carbonatite or alkaline intrusions transform surrounding country rock.
metamorphic