Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Strawberry Garnet
A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.
gemstone
Adirondack Garnet
Adirondack Garnet is large, dark-red almandine from New York's Gore Mountain, the world's most famous industrial garnet abrasive source.
mineral
Topazolite Garnet
A rare yellow to golden variety of andradite garnet, the topaz-colored cousin of green demantoid, prized for high dispersion and brilliance.
gemstone
Pyralspite Garnet
Pyralspite is the aluminum garnet series uniting pyrope, almandine, and spessartine, covering most red, orange, and purple gem garnets.
mineral
Tsavorite Garnet
A brilliant green grossular garnet colored by chromium and vanadium, rivaling emerald with superior brilliance and durability.
gemstone
Chocolate Garnet
A rich brown variety of andradite (or grossular-andradite) garnet, marketed for its warm chocolate color and notable brilliance.
gemstone
Rhodolite Garnet
A purplish-red to raspberry garnet that is a natural blend of pyrope and almandine, prized for its bright rose-violet color.
gemstone
Andradite Garnet
The calcium-iron garnet species, ranging from brilliant green demantoid to golden topazolite and jet-black melanite.
gemstone
Ugrandite Garnet
Ugrandite is the calcium garnet series uniting uvarovite, grossular, and andradite, including tsavorite and the fiery demantoid.
mineralGooseberry Garnet
Gooseberry Garnet is a soft green grossular garnet named for its resemblance to the pale, translucent green of ripe gooseberries.
gemstone
Uvarovite Garnet
The rare calcium-chromium garnet, famous for its sparkling emerald-green druzy crusts of tiny crystals, the only consistently green garnet.
mineral
Demantoid Garnet
A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.
gemstone
Merelani Mint Garnet
A delicate vanadium-colored mint-green grossular garnet from the Merelani Hills of Tanzania, the source of tanzanite.
gemstoneMasasi Blue Garnet
Masasi Blue Garnet is a rare vanadium-bearing color-change garnet from Tanzania that appears blue-green by day and purplish-red indoors.
gemstone
Hydrogrossular Garnet
A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.
gemstone
Spessartite Garnet
A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.
gemstone
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet
A synthetic garnet-structured oxide (YAG) used as a diamond simulant and laser crystal, with no natural counterpart.
gemstone
Wacke
A poorly sorted, muddy sandstone with abundant clay matrix between its grains, typically dark and deposited by turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Greywacke
A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Arkose
A coarse, feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that records rapid erosion of granitic source rock under arid conditions.
sedimentary
Amphibolite
A dark, dense metamorphic rock dominated by hornblende and plagioclase, formed by medium- to high-grade metamorphism of basalt.
metamorphic
Greensand
A green, glauconite-rich marine sandstone that records slow deposition on continental shelves and is used as a soil amendment.
sedimentaryAsphalt Rock
A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.
sedimentary
Metaquartzite
A hard, tough metamorphic rock of fused quartz grains, formed by recrystallizing quartz sandstone under heat and pressure.
metamorphic