Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Liddicoatite

A rare calcium-rich lithium tourmaline famous for the spectacular concentric color zoning seen in polished cross-section slices.

Wolframite is the historic principal ore of tungsten, a heavy black tungstate forming bladed crystals in granite veins.

An earthy-toned jasper with vine-like or scenic patterning, valued by lapidaries for warm browns, reds, and creams that polish to a smooth finish.

A fine-grained, silica-rich volcanic rock that is the extrusive equivalent of granite, often pale, banded, or flow-textured.

A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.

The most abundant mineral group in Earth's crust, feldspars are aluminosilicates that form much of granite and many igneous rocks.

A natural sheen obsidian whose black glass displays a soft, velvety rainbow shimmer from aligned magnetite nanoparticles when polished and tilted.

An extremely rare rubidium-dominant alkali feldspar, the rubidium analogue of microcline, found in rare-element granitic pegmatites.

A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.

A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.

A prized Idaho jasper known for porcelain-smooth pastel pinks, creams, and greens in soft swirling, orbicular patterns.

A prized Idaho picture jasper from Bruneau Canyon known for brown and cream orbicular egg-rock patterns and scenic landscapes.