Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
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
Red Agate
A red-toned banded chalcedony colored by iron oxides, ranging from natural carnelian-like reds to heat-treated stones.
gemstone
Blue Apatite
A blue calcium phosphate mineral with vivid color and middling hardness, the same mineral family that forms bones and teeth.
mineral
Amazonite
The blue-green gem variety of microcline feldspar, often mottled with white, prized as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentaryDragon 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.
metamorphicSuper Seven
A trade name for quartz containing a combination of seven minerals including amethyst, smoky quartz, and cacoxenite, prized by collectors.
crystal
Iolite
The gem variety of cordierite, famous for strong pleochroism that shifts from violet-blue to near-colorless.
gemstoneSandstone
A clastic sedimentary rock made of cemented sand grains, often quartz, recording ancient beaches, deserts, and rivers.
sedimentary
Flint
A hard, dark variety of chert that knaps into razor-sharp edges and sparks against steel, central to Stone Age technology.
sedimentary
Oolitic Limestone
Limestone built from tiny rounded ooid grains resembling fish roe, formed in warm, agitated shallow seas.
sedimentary
Bloodstone Jasper
A dark green jasper-chalcedony speckled with red iron-oxide spots, classically known as bloodstone or heliotrope.
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
Staurolite-mica Schist
A mica schist studded with red-brown staurolite porphyroblasts, including the famous cross-shaped twins called fairy stones.
metamorphic
Mookaite Jasper
An Australian silicified radiolarite jasper in warm mustard, red, burgundy, and cream earth tones, found only in Western Australia.
sedimentaryPicasso Jasper
A marbled, abstractly patterned stone resembling modern art, technically a metamorphosed limestone rather than a true silica jasper.
metamorphicMocha Agate
A pale translucent chalcedony threaded with brown-black manganese and iron dendrites that mimic tiny ferns, mosses or landscapes.
gemstone
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphic
Leopard Skin Jasper
A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineralElephant 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