Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Lepidolite
A soft lithium-bearing mica with a lilac to purple color and pearly, flaky sheen, an important ore of lithium.
mineral
Purple Tourmaline
An uncommon purple to violet tourmaline colored by manganese, the deeper reddish-purple stones sometimes called siberite.
gemstone
Watermelon Tourmaline
A striking color-zoned tourmaline with a pink center and green rind, resembling a slice of watermelon when cut across the crystal.
gemstoneMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstone
Botswana Agate
A finely banded agate from Botswana known for delicate parallel layers of grey, pink, and white.
mineralLotus Garnet
A delicate pinkish-purple to peach garnet from Tanzania, a pyrope-spessartine blend named for the soft colors of a lotus flower.
gemstone
Raspberry Garnet
A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.
gemstone
Brookite
An orthorhombic titanium dioxide polymorph forming tabular brown to black crystals with brilliant metallic-adamantine luster.
mineral
Sodalite
A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.
mineral
Vorobyevite
An old name for cesium-rich, often pink beryl (related to morganite), named after Russian mineralogist Victor Vorobyev.
gemstone
Cherry Opal
A translucent red opal, closely related to Mexican fire opal, glowing with a warm cherry-red body color often free of play-of-color.
gemstoneMahenge Garnet
Mahenge Garnet is a pyrope-spessartine gem from Tanzania's Mahenge region, prized for vivid pink, purple, and color-change tones.
gemstonePeach Opal
A gentle peach-to-apricot opal, mostly common opal colored by trace iron, prized for its soft warm pastel body.
gemstone
Pastel Tourmaline
A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.
gemstone
Danburite
A glassy calcium borosilicate forming wedge-tipped prismatic crystals, usually colorless to pale yellow or pink, sometimes faceted as a gem.
crystal
Red Tourmaline
Vivid red to raspberry tourmaline, the most intense colors are marketed as rubellite, colored by manganese in the elbaite structure.
gemstoneApricot Tourmaline
A warm apricot to peachy orange-pink elbaite tourmaline colored mainly by manganese, prized for its soft, glowing warmth.
gemstone
Rossmanite
A rare lithium-aluminum tourmaline with a vacant X site, typically pale pink to colorless and found in lithium pegmatites.
mineral
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneousMadagascar Opal
Opal from Madagascar spanning colorful common opal and some precious opal, including pink, green and boulder-type material.
gemstone
Pezzottaite
A rare cesium-rich, beryl-related gem mineral with a raspberry-pink color, first found in Madagascar in 2002.
gemstoneUmbalite Garnet
A delicate pink to lavender garnet from Tanzania's Umba Valley, a pyrope-spessartine blend often marketed as a soft, light-toned rhodolite.
gemstone
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstoneLeopard Obsidian
Black volcanic glass marked with rounded spots and patches that resemble a leopard's coat, caused by spherulitic crystallization.
igneous