Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Ribbon Jasper
A banded jasper showing parallel ribbon-like stripes of contrasting color formed by layered silica and mineral deposition.
mineral
Snow Quartz
An opaque, snow-white variety of quartz whose milky color comes from countless tiny gas and fluid inclusions.
crystal
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Kambaba Jasper
A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.
sedimentary
Paintbrush Jasper
A scenic jasper whose flowing streaks of warm color resemble strokes left by a loaded paintbrush.
mineral
Quartzite
An extremely hard metamorphic rock formed from sandstone, made of fused quartz grains that break across rather than between the grains.
metamorphic
Smoky Quartz
The smoky brown to gray variety of quartz, colored by natural irradiation, valued as both a gemstone and crystal specimen.
crystal
Lemon Quartz
A vivid greenish-yellow quartz, usually heat-treated or irradiated, prized for its clean clarity and bright lemon color.
crystal
Quartz Schist
A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by quartz with enough mica to give it a schistose, splitting fabric.
metamorphic
Cave Creek Jasper
An opaque jasper from the Cave Creek area of Arizona, prized for earthy mottled and banded patterns in warm desert tones.
mineral
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystal
Mookaite Jasper
An Australian silicified radiolarite jasper in warm mustard, red, burgundy, and cream earth tones, found only in Western Australia.
sedimentary
Spirit Quartz
A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in tiny druzy points, also called cactus or fairy quartz.
crystal
Morion Quartz
The darkest, near-opaque black variety of smoky quartz, colored by natural radiation acting on trace aluminum.
crystal
Cactus Quartz
A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in a cactus-like crust of tiny secondary points, also called spirit quartz.
crystal
Enhydro Quartz
Quartz containing a sealed pocket of ancient water, often with a mobile air bubble that moves when the crystal is tilted.
crystal
Dallasite Jasper
A green-and-white volcanic breccia from Vancouver Island, cemented by jasper and rich in epidote, popular as a regional lapidary stone.
gemstone
Crocodile Jasper
A deep green-and-black stromatolitic jasper, essentially Kambaba Jasper, with circular eye patterns resembling crocodile skin.
mineral
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
Scepter Quartz
Quartz with a wider crystal 'cap' that grew over a narrower stem, forming a natural scepter or mushroom shape.
crystal
Garden Quartz
Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.
crystal
Sea Sediment Jasper
A colorful trade-name material, often dyed and reconstituted, sold as jasper; vivid blues and greens are typically artificially enhanced.
mineral
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Green Quartz
A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.
crystal