Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Red Sandstone
Iron-stained sandstone whose red color comes from hematite coatings, formed in oxidizing desert, river, and coastal environments.
sedimentary
Jade
A tough, prized ornamental gem that is actually two distinct minerals, jadeite and nephrite, revered for millennia in many cultures.
gemstone
Amber
Fossilized tree resin, warm and lightweight, sometimes preserving ancient insects and plant matter inside.
gemstone
Goldstone
A man-made glittering glass packed with tiny copper crystals, traditionally reddish-brown but also made in blue and green.
crystal
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineral
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
Mariposite
A green, gold-associated metamorphic rock made of chrome-rich mica and quartz, named for Mariposa County in California's gold country.
metamorphic
Devitrified Obsidian
Obsidian that has partly crystallized over time, growing pale spherulite clusters within the black glass, as in snowflake obsidian.
igneous
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Cleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineral
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Green Marble
A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.
metamorphic
Red Jasper
An opaque, iron-rich variety of microcrystalline quartz known for its deep brick-red color and ancient history as a stone of strength and grounding.
gemstone
Landscape Opal
A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.
gemstoneScenic Agate
A translucent agate whose mineral inclusions resemble miniature landscapes of trees, hills, and horizons within the stone.
gemstoneMintabie Opal
Precious opal from the Mintabie field in South Australia, known for hard, bright crystal opal and some dark-bodied stones.
gemstoneFireworks Obsidian
Black volcanic glass dotted with radiating spherulite bursts that look like exploding fireworks frozen in the stone.
igneous
Bi-Color Tourmaline
Tourmaline displaying two distinct colors in a single crystal, a natural color-zoning effect that makes each stone unique.
gemstone
Demantoid Garnet
A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.
gemstone
Bi-color Beryl
A single beryl crystal showing two distinct color zones, such as aquamarine blue grading into morganite pink, within one stone.
gemstone
Tree Agate
A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.
gemstoneOnyx Marble
Translucent banded calcium-carbonate stone deposited in caves and springs, prized for ornamental carvings despite its softness.
sedimentaryAmegreen
A natural bicolor quartz blending amethyst purple with prasiolite green in a single crystal, prized as a metaphysical heart-crown stone.
crystal
Flower Agate
A creamy pink-and-white chalcedony from Madagascar containing flower-like plume inclusions that resemble blossoms suspended in stone.
gemstone