Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Blue Apatite
A blue calcium phosphate mineral with vivid color and middling hardness, the same mineral family that forms bones and teeth.
mineral
Pipestone
A soft, fine-grained red metamorphosed claystone, sacred to many Native American peoples and carved into ceremonial pipes.
metamorphic
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Turquoise
A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.
mineral
Flint
A hard, dark variety of chert that knaps into razor-sharp edges and sparks against steel, central to Stone Age technology.
sedimentary
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Dumortierite
A hard aluminum borosilicate famous for its rich denim-blue color, often forming dense fibrous masses or coloring quartz blue.
mineral
Verdite
A rich green, fuchsite-rich metamorphic rock from southern Africa, prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
metamorphic
Charoite
A rare swirling lilac-to-violet silicate found only in Siberia, prized for its fibrous, chatoyant purple patterns.
mineral
Iolite
The gem variety of cordierite, famous for strong pleochroism that shifts from violet-blue to near-colorless.
gemstone
Super Seven
A trade name for quartz containing a combination of seven minerals including amethyst, smoky quartz, and cacoxenite, prized by collectors.
crystal
Dragon Blood Jasper
A green-and-red ornamental stone of epidote and red piemontite or iron oxide, named for its dragon-skin coloring; not a true jasper.
metamorphic
Picasso Jasper
A marbled, abstractly patterned stone resembling modern art, technically a metamorphosed limestone rather than a true silica jasper.
metamorphic
Sard
A brownish-red to deep brown variety of chalcedony, closely related to carnelian but darker, colored by iron oxides.
mineral
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineral
Elephant Skin Jasper
A gray-brown jasper whose mottled, wrinkled patterning resembles elephant hide, also sold as Miriam or calligraphy stone.
mineral
Apophyllite
A glassy, often colorless silicate that forms pyramid-tipped cubes and is famed for its pearly basal cleavage and watery clarity.
crystal
Oolitic Limestone
Limestone built from tiny rounded ooid grains resembling fish roe, formed in warm, agitated shallow seas.
sedimentary
Angelite
A soft pale-blue calcium sulfate, the anhydrous form of gypsum, prized as a gentle, calming tumbled stone.
mineral
Sunstone
A feldspar gemstone that sparkles with metallic glints (aventurescence) caused by tiny reflective copper or hematite platelets.
gemstone
Ironstone
An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.
sedimentary
Bloodstone Jasper
A dark green jasper-chalcedony speckled with red iron-oxide spots, classically known as bloodstone or heliotrope.
mineral