Rock Identifier

Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Spessartite Garnet

Spessartite Garnet

A manganese aluminum garnet glowing in vivid orange to reddish-orange tones, with the finest called mandarin garnet.

gemstone
Melanite Garnet

Melanite Garnet

The titanium-rich black variety of andradite garnet, with a brilliant resinous luster prized for mourning and statement jewelry.

gemstone
Uvarovite Garnet

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

Demantoid Garnet

A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.

gemstone

Bekily Garnet

A rare color-change garnet from Bekily, Madagascar, shifting from bluish-green in daylight to purplish-red under warm light, including the famed blue garnets.

gemstone
Bohemian Garnet

Bohemian Garnet

Small, intensely red chrome-pyrope garnets from the Czech Bohemian region, famous for densely set antique Victorian jewelry.

gemstone
Color Change Garnet

Color Change Garnet

A rare garnet that dramatically shifts color from greenish in daylight to reddish under lamplight, rivaling alexandrite.

gemstone
Merelani Mint Garnet

Merelani Mint Garnet

A delicate vanadium-colored mint-green grossular garnet from the Merelani Hills of Tanzania, the source of tanzanite.

gemstone
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet

Yttrium Aluminum Garnet

A synthetic garnet-structured oxide (YAG) used as a diamond simulant and laser crystal, with no natural counterpart.

gemstone

Masasi 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
Idaho Star Garnet

Idaho Star Garnet

Idaho's official state gem: a dark almandine garnet showing a four- or rare six-rayed star from oriented rutile inclusions.

gemstone
Ant Hill Garnet

Ant Hill Garnet

Small, bright chrome-pyrope garnets famously brought to the surface by harvester ants on the Navajo lands of Arizona.

gemstone
Majorite

Majorite

An ultra-high-pressure garnet with silicon in the octahedral site, formed in the deep mantle transition zone and in shocked meteorites.

mineral

Hutcheonite

A titanium-aluminum garnet discovered in calcium-aluminum inclusions of the Allende meteorite, recording the earliest history of the solar system.

mineral
Goldmanite

Goldmanite

A green, vanadium-dominant garnet that forms in vanadium-rich metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, notably in uranium-vanadium districts.

mineral
Calderite

Calderite

A manganese-iron garnet that forms in metamorphosed manganese deposits, intermediate in composition between spessartine and andradite.

mineral
Kimzeyite

Kimzeyite

A rare zirconium-bearing garnet that crystallizes in carbonatites and alkaline rocks, first described from Magnet Cove, Arkansas.

mineral

Kerimasite

A zirconium-rich garnet related to kimzeyite, formed in carbonatites and skarns, named after the Kerimasi volcano in Tanzania.

mineral

Morimotoite

A black titanium garnet related to andradite and schorlomite, containing tetravalent titanium and ferrous iron, found in skarns and alkaline rocks.

mineral

Eltyubyuite

A rare chlorine-bearing iron garnet-supergroup mineral, the ferric analogue of wadalite, formed in high-temperature combustion-metamorphic rocks.

mineral
Cape Ruby

Cape Ruby

Cape Ruby is a deep red pyrope garnet from South African diamond deposits, prized as an affordable, fiery alternative to ruby.

gemstone

Arizona Ruby

Arizona Ruby is a chromium-rich pyrope garnet from Arizona, often gathered from anthills, valued for its intense ruby-like red.

gemstone

Knorringite

A chromium-rich magnesium garnet of the pyrope series that crystallizes in the deep mantle and is a valuable diamond indicator mineral.

mineral
Chrome Pyrope

Chrome Pyrope

A chromium-rich pyrope garnet whose intense blood-red color comes from chromium, often mined from ant hills and kimberlite weathering.

gemstone