Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Star Moonstone
A rare moonstone that shows a four-rayed star of light (asterism) across its domed surface along with adularescence.
gemstone
Belomorite
A regional Russian name for a moonstone-like plagioclase from the White Sea coast, prized for its bluish, slightly iridescent schiller.
gemstone
Bostonite
A fine-grained, feldspar-rich dike rock with a trachytic texture, essentially a hypabyssal equivalent of trachyte or syenite.
igneous
Latite
The fine-grained volcanic equivalent of monzonite, an intermediate lava with nearly equal feldspars and little free quartz.
igneous
Limburgite
A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.
igneous
Feldspathic Sandstone
A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.
sedimentary
Granodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneousUnakite Jasper
An altered granite of pink feldspar, green epidote and quartz, mottled pink-and-green and popular as a tumbled and carving stone.
metamorphic
Moonstone
A feldspar gem famous for adularescence, a floating blue-white glow that shimmers across the stone like moonlight.
gemstone
Essexite
A dark, silica-undersaturated gabbroic rock containing nepheline along with plagioclase, alkali feldspar, and pyroxene, also known as nepheline monzogabbro.
igneousPeach Moonstone
A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.
gemstone
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous
Cleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineral
Arkose
A coarse, feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that records rapid erosion of granitic source rock under arid conditions.
sedimentary
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphic
Porphyritic Obsidian
Natural volcanic glass speckled with embedded mineral crystals (phenocrysts) such as feldspar or cristobalite that grew before the lava chilled.
igneous
White Moonstone
The classic moonstone: a milky-white feldspar showing the prized floating blue-to-silver adularescent glow that gives the gem its name.
gemstoneCat's Eye Moonstone
A moonstone variety displaying a moving band of light (chatoyancy) across its surface in addition to the classic moonstone glow.
gemstone
Amphibolite
A dark, dense metamorphic rock dominated by hornblende and plagioclase, formed by medium- to high-grade metamorphism of basalt.
metamorphic
Diabase
A tough, dark, medium-grained igneous rock with the composition of basalt, common in dikes and sills.
igneous
Troctolite
A mafic plutonic rock of plagioclase and olivine whose mottled appearance earned it the nickname 'troutstone'.
igneous
Basalt
A fine-grained, dark volcanic rock that erupts as fluid lava and forms most of the ocean floor and many lava plateaus.
igneous
Gabbro
A coarse-grained, dark mafic intrusive rock that is the plutonic equivalent of basalt, rich in plagioclase and pyroxene.
igneous
Diorite
A coarse-grained intrusive rock with a distinctive salt-and-pepper look, the plutonic equivalent of andesite.
igneous