Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Poppy Jasper
An orbicular jasper with red and orange flower-like spots resembling poppies, famously from Morgan Hill, California.
mineral
Jasper
An opaque, often colorfully patterned variety of chalcedony quartz, popular for tumbling, carving, and jewelry.
mineral
Lepidolite
A soft lithium-bearing mica with a lilac to purple color and pearly, flaky sheen, an important ore of lithium.
mineralPipestone
A soft, fine-grained red metamorphosed claystone, sacred to many Native American peoples and carved into ceremonial pipes.
metamorphic
Purple Tourmaline
An uncommon purple to violet tourmaline colored by manganese, the deeper reddish-purple stones sometimes called siberite.
gemstone
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphic
Andesine
An intermediate plagioclase feldspar between albite and anorthite, marketed as a red to champagne gemstone, sometimes color-treated.
gemstonePeach Moonstone
A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.
gemstone
Watermelon Tourmaline
A striking color-zoned tourmaline with a pink center and green rind, resembling a slice of watermelon when cut across the crystal.
gemstoneMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstone
Botswana Agate
A finely banded agate from Botswana known for delicate parallel layers of grey, pink, and white.
mineralLotus Garnet
A delicate pinkish-purple to peach garnet from Tanzania, a pyrope-spessartine blend named for the soft colors of a lotus flower.
gemstonePigeon Blood Agate
A richly colored red banded agate prized by lapidaries for its deep crimson-to-brown tones reminiscent of pigeon's blood.
gemstone
Vanadinite
A brilliant orange-red lead vanadate mineral forming hexagonal crystals, prized by collectors and mined as an ore of vanadium.
mineral
Brookite
An orthorhombic titanium dioxide polymorph forming tabular brown to black crystals with brilliant metallic-adamantine luster.
mineral
Sodalite
A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.
mineral
Vorobyevite
An old name for cesium-rich, often pink beryl (related to morganite), named after Russian mineralogist Victor Vorobyev.
gemstone
Granite
A coarse-grained, speckled intrusive rock built from quartz, feldspar, and mica, forming the bedrock of the continents.
igneousMahenge Garnet
Mahenge Garnet is a pyrope-spessartine gem from Tanzania's Mahenge region, prized for vivid pink, purple, and color-change tones.
gemstonePeach Opal
A gentle peach-to-apricot opal, mostly common opal colored by trace iron, prized for its soft warm pastel body.
gemstoneSandstone
A clastic sedimentary rock made of cemented sand grains, often quartz, recording ancient beaches, deserts, and rivers.
sedimentary
Pastel Tourmaline
A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.
gemstone
Danburite
A glassy calcium borosilicate forming wedge-tipped prismatic crystals, usually colorless to pale yellow or pink, sometimes faceted as a gem.
crystal
Zincite
A rare zinc oxide best known for its deep red to orange color, classically from Franklin, New Jersey, and as colorful man-made crystals.
mineral