Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Luxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneous
Flame Agate
A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.
gemstone
Prehnite
A translucent yellow-green silicate famous for its botryoidal 'grape' clusters, often hosting needle-like sprays of black epidote.
mineralReptile Jasper
A green-and-black mottled jasper whose scale-like patterning resembles reptile skin, often linked to Kambaba and crocodile jaspers.
mineral
Crocodile Jasper
A deep green-and-black stromatolitic jasper, essentially Kambaba Jasper, with circular eye patterns resembling crocodile skin.
mineral
Dendritic Agate
A translucent chalcedony decorated with branching, fern-like manganese or iron oxide inclusions resembling tiny plants.
mineralDouble Flow Obsidian
Obsidian formed from two merged lava flows, producing a stone with two distinct bands of sheen or color.
igneous
Howlite
A white, porous borate mineral webbed with gray-black veins, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.
mineralPolyhedroid Agate
A rare agate that forms naturally with flat polygonal faces and angular geometric shapes rather than the usual rounded nodule.
gemstone
Hausmannite
A brownish-black manganese oxide and important manganese ore, forming pseudo-octahedral crystals with a chestnut-brown streak.
mineral
Franklinite
A black spinel-group zinc iron oxide, essentially unique to Franklin, New Jersey, where it was a key zinc and manganese ore.
mineral
Sapropel
A soft, dark, organic-rich mud deposited in stagnant, oxygen-poor water, a key precursor to oil and gas source rocks.
sedimentary
Pyrolusite
A black manganese dioxide mineral that is the most important ore of manganese and a source of black pigment and dendrites.
mineral
Acanthite
A silver sulfide that is one of the most important silver ore minerals, forming dark metallic crystals and wires.
mineral
Norite
A coarse-grained mafic plutonic rock similar to gabbro but with orthopyroxene as the dominant pyroxene instead of clinopyroxene.
igneous
Magnetite
A naturally magnetic black iron oxide and a major iron ore; strongly magnetic specimens are known as lodestone.
mineral
Bituminous Shale
A dark, organic-rich shale loaded with kerogen and bitumen that can yield oil and gas, often finely laminated and combustible.
sedimentary
Psilomelane
A field term for hard black massive manganese oxides, often botryoidal, mined as an important manganese ore.
mineral
Ocean Jasper
A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.
sedimentary
Tibetan Quartz
Clear quartz mined in the Himalayan region, often double-terminated and containing dark hematite or carbon inclusions.
crystal
Sphalerite
Zinc sulfide and the chief ore of zinc, prized when transparent for its extreme fire that exceeds diamond.
mineral
Stephanite
A black metallic silver antimony sulfide, historically a notable silver ore known as brittle silver ore.
mineral
Tourmaline Schist
A foliated schist threaded with black tourmaline (schorl) needles, marking boron-rich metamorphic or metasomatic conditions.
metamorphic
Tourmalinated Quartz
Clear or milky quartz threaded with black needles of tourmaline (schorl), combining quartz clarity with dramatic dark inclusions.
crystal