Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Umbalite 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
Pezzottaite
A rare cesium-rich, beryl-related gem mineral with a raspberry-pink color, first found in Madagascar in 2002.
gemstone
Madagascar Opal
Opal from Madagascar spanning colorful common opal and some precious opal, including pink, green and boulder-type material.
gemstone
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstone
Peach Moonstone
A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.
gemstone
Sparite
Coarse, clear-to-white crystalline calcite that cements limestones, contrasting with fine muddy micrite.
sedimentary
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
Wolframite
Wolframite is the historic principal ore of tungsten, a heavy black tungstate forming bladed crystals in granite veins.
mineral
Rhyolite
A fine-grained, silica-rich volcanic rock that is the extrusive equivalent of granite, often pale, banded, or flow-textured.
igneous
Feldspar
The most abundant mineral group in Earth's crust, feldspars are aluminosilicates that form much of granite and many igneous rocks.
mineral
Cleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineral
Orthoclase
A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.
mineral
Rubicline
An extremely rare rubidium-dominant alkali feldspar, the rubidium analogue of microcline, found in rare-element granitic pegmatites.
mineral
Selenite
A clear, soft crystalline variety of gypsum that forms glassy or fibrous wands, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
crystal
Emerald Crystal
The natural crystalline form of emerald, the prized green chromium-and-vanadium variety of beryl and the May birthstone.
crystal
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineral
Clear Quartz
The pure, colorless form of crystalline quartz, valued for its clarity, abundance, and piezoelectric properties used in electronics.
crystal
Frost Agate
A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.
gemstone
Diamond
The hardest known natural material, a crystalline form of pure carbon prized as the ultimate gemstone for its brilliance and fire.
gemstone
Rhodochrosite
Rhodochrosite is a rose-pink manganese carbonate prized for raspberry-red crystals and banded pink-and-white gem material.
gemstone
Imperial Garnet
A trade name for high-brilliance golden grossular-andradite (grandite) garnet, most associated with the Mali deposits of West Africa.
gemstone
Mali Garnet
A rare grossular-andradite blend ('grandite') from Mali, prized for its high brilliance and golden-green to yellow color.
gemstone
Snake Skin Agate
A chalcedony with a distinctive scaly, reptile-skin surface texture, typically in pale tan, pink, and gray tones.
gemstone
Smithsonite
Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.
mineral