Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Vorobyevite
An old name for cesium-rich, often pink beryl (related to morganite), named after Russian mineralogist Victor Vorobyev.
gemstoneCat's Eye Morganite
Pink beryl (morganite) that shows chatoyancy, a moving band of light, when cut as a cabochon, thanks to parallel tube inclusions.
gemstone
Pezzottaite
A rare cesium-rich, beryl-related gem mineral with a raspberry-pink color, first found in Madagascar in 2002.
gemstoneBekily 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
Maxixe Aquamarine
A deep blue beryl whose intense color comes from radiation-induced color centers and tends to fade in light, named after the Maxixe mine in Brazil.
gemstone
Aquamarine Crystal
The blue iron-bearing variety of beryl, forming clear hexagonal crystals prized both as specimens and as a March birthstone gem.
crystalCat's Eye Opal
An opal cut to show chatoyancy, a sharp moving band of light like a cat's eye, usually in honey, green or yellow common opal.
gemstone
Prasiolite
A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.
gemstone
Star Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl that shows asterism, a moving star of light from intersecting sets of parallel inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.
gemstoneTrapiche Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl showing a fixed six-spoke wheel pattern caused by impurity inclusions arranged along the crystal's growth axis.
gemstone
Lithic Sandstone
A sandstone in which the dominant grains are fragments of pre-existing rocks rather than single minerals, signaling rapid erosion nearby.
sedimentary
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
Mint Tourmaline
A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.
gemstoneMint Obsidian
A pale mint-green glass sold as obsidian; most uniform light-green material on the market is manufactured glass rather than natural volcanic obsidian.
igneous
Chrysoberyl
An exceptionally hard beryllium aluminum oxide prized for golden hues, sharp cat's-eye effect, and the rare color-change alexandrite variety.
gemstone
Olive Tourmaline
An earthy olive to yellowish-green tourmaline, a muted green-brown gem variety colored by iron with subtle warm undertones.
gemstone
Greywacke
A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.
sedimentaryMint Opal
A soft mint-green variety of common opal, usually opaque and colored by trace copper or nontronite inclusions rather than play-of-color.
gemstoneAmegreen
A natural bicolor quartz blending amethyst purple with prasiolite green in a single crystal, prized as a metaphysical heart-crown stone.
crystal
Greensand
A green, glauconite-rich marine sandstone that records slow deposition on continental shelves and is used as a soil amendment.
sedimentary
Malachite
A vivid green copper carbonate mineral famous for swirling concentric bands, used as an ore of copper and an ornamental gemstone.
mineralMint Garnet
A delicate pastel-green grossular garnet, lighter than tsavorite, most famously from the Merelani Hills of Tanzania.
gemstone
Pyromorphite
A lead phosphate secondary mineral known for barrel-shaped green to yellow crystals formed in oxidized lead deposits.
mineral