Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Rhodonite
A rose-pink manganese silicate marbled with black veins, prized as a tough ornamental and occasionally faceted gemstone.
mineral
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineral
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Amazonite
The blue-green gem variety of microcline feldspar, often mottled with white, prized as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Rutilated Quartz
Clear or smoky quartz threaded with golden to reddish needles of rutile, also poetically called Venus hair stone.
crystal
Microcline
A common potassium feldspar identical in composition to orthoclase but more ordered, famous for its green gem variety amazonite.
mineralDouble Flow Obsidian
Obsidian formed from two merged lava flows, producing a stone with two distinct bands of sheen or color.
igneous
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstoneFlame Opal
A glowing orange-to-red opal whose warm body color resembles flame; some stones add flashes of play-of-color.
gemstoneAlabaster
A soft, fine-grained, translucent form of gypsum (or banded calcite) long prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
mineralOnyx Marble
Translucent banded calcium-carbonate stone deposited in caves and springs, prized for ornamental carvings despite its softness.
sedimentary
Hydrogrossular Garnet
A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.
gemstone
Leopard Opal
A patterned common opal with mottled, leopard-like spots and blotches, prized as an ornamental and cabochon stone.
gemstone
Flame Agate
A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.
gemstoneFlame Jasper
A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.
mineral
Landscape Opal
A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.
gemstone
Green Marble
A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.
metamorphic
Tree Agate
A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.
gemstone
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstoneParticolored Tourmaline
A tourmaline displaying two or more distinct colors in a single crystal, prized for natural color zoning like watermelon and bicolor stones.
gemstone