Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Bubblegum Tourmaline
A bright, opaque-to-translucent bubblegum-pink elbaite tourmaline, a playful candy-pink variety popular in beads and cabochons.
gemstone
Grape Agate
Clusters of tiny botryoidal chalcedony spheres resembling bunches of grapes, famously purple, found in Indonesia.
mineral
Pyrargyrite
A silver antimony sulfosalt known as dark ruby silver, an important silver ore with deep red internal reflections.
mineral
Raspberry Garnet
A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.
gemstone
Pezzottaite
A rare cesium-rich, beryl-related gem mineral with a raspberry-pink color, first found in Madagascar in 2002.
gemstoneSmoky Obsidian
Translucent smoky-gray obsidian that transmits a hazy light, intermediate between clear and fully black volcanic glass.
igneous
Strawberry Garnet
A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.
gemstone
Pastel Tourmaline
A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.
gemstone
Hornblende Schist
A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.
metamorphicMadagascar Opal
Opal from Madagascar spanning colorful common opal and some precious opal, including pink, green and boulder-type material.
gemstoneMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstoneDragon Vein Agate
A treated chalcedony with a network of crackled veins, usually heated and dyed in vivid colors for affordable, eye-catching beads.
gemstone
Rossmanite
A rare lithium-aluminum tourmaline with a vacant X site, typically pale pink to colorless and found in lithium pegmatites.
mineral
Red Tourmaline
Vivid red to raspberry tourmaline, the most intense colors are marketed as rubellite, colored by manganese in the elbaite structure.
gemstoneAmegreen
A natural bicolor quartz blending amethyst purple with prasiolite green in a single crystal, prized as a metaphysical heart-crown stone.
crystal
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Graphic Granite
A pegmatitic granite in which quartz and feldspar intergrow to resemble ancient runic or Hebrew script.
igneous
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Latite
The fine-grained volcanic equivalent of monzonite, an intermediate lava with nearly equal feldspars and little free quartz.
igneous
Paragonite Schist
A pale, silvery schist dominated by paragonite, the sodium-rich white mica, formed in aluminous metamorphic rocks.
metamorphic
Graphic Feldspar
A pegmatite rock of feldspar intergrown with wedge-shaped quartz that resembles ancient runic or Hebrew writing.
igneous
Black Shale
Dark, organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock formed in oxygen-poor waters, often a source rock for oil and gas.
sedimentary
Chevron Amethyst
A naturally banded quartz combining purple amethyst and white quartz in striking V-shaped chevron or zigzag patterns.
crystal
Dacite
A fine-grained volcanic rock intermediate between andesite and rhyolite, common at explosive stratovolcanoes.
igneous