Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineral
Lamprophyre
A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.
igneous
Calcilutite
A very fine-grained, mud-sized limestone formed from carbonate mud, smooth and dense with conchoidal fracture.
sedimentary
Crocodile Jasper
A deep green-and-black stromatolitic jasper, essentially Kambaba Jasper, with circular eye patterns resembling crocodile skin.
mineral
Eulysite
A rare, dense iron-rich metamorphic rock composed of fayalite, iron pyroxene, and almandine garnet.
metamorphic
Whiteschist
A rare high-pressure metamorphic schist defined by the diagnostic assemblage of talc plus kyanite, often pale and silvery.
metamorphic
Minette
A dark, mica-rich lamprophyre dike rock in which biotite and augite phenocrysts sit in a groundmass dominated by alkali feldspar.
igneous
Zebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Naujaite
A sodalite-rich agpaitic nepheline syenite with poikilitic texture from the Ilimaussaq complex, packed with blue sodalite, eudialyte and arfvedsonite.
igneous
Cordierite Hornfels
A tough, fine-grained contact-metamorphic rock containing cordierite, often spotted, formed by heat from nearby igneous intrusions.
metamorphic
Carbonatite
A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.
igneous
Troctolite
A mafic plutonic rock of plagioclase and olivine whose mottled appearance earned it the nickname 'troutstone'.
igneous
Orbicular Granite
A rare granitic rock containing concentric, onion-like spheres called orbicules, prized as a striking ornamental stone.
igneous
Schist
A medium-grade metamorphic rock rich in aligned platy minerals that gives it a shiny, easily splitting, foliated texture.
metamorphic
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Radiolarite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock built from the microscopic silica skeletons of radiolarians, often forming colorful ribbon-banded cherts.
sedimentary
Tactite
A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.
metamorphic
Pseudotachylite
A dark, glassy rock formed when frictional heat from fault movement or impact melts rock along narrow veins.
metamorphic
Crinoidal Limestone
A fossiliferous limestone built largely from the disc-shaped skeletal plates of crinoids, marine animals known as sea lilies.
sedimentary
Skarn
A calc-silicate rock formed by chemical exchange between magma and carbonate rock, often rich in garnet and economically important ore minerals.
metamorphic
Phosphorite
Phosphate-rich sedimentary rock, the world's main source of phosphorus for fertilizers, formed in nutrient-rich marine settings.
sedimentary
Bauxite
An earthy aluminum-rich residual rock and the world's principal ore of aluminum, often showing distinctive pea-like pisolites.
sedimentary
Argillite
Hardened, fine-grained mudrock intermediate between shale and slate, dense and non-fissile, often carved into ornaments.
sedimentary
Kersantite
A dark mica lamprophyre with biotite and augite phenocrysts in a plagioclase-dominated groundmass, the feldspar counterpart of minette.
igneous