Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Fossiliferous Limestone

Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.

A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.

The rarest and most valuable opal, with a dark body tone that makes its flashing rainbow play-of-color blaze brilliantly.

A boron-rich silicate gemstone group famous for occurring in every color of the rainbow, sometimes several within a single crystal.

The lithium-rich tourmaline species responsible for nearly all gem tourmaline, occurring in every color of the rainbow.

Precious opal with a warm chocolate-brown body tone that makes its rainbow play-of-color glow, mainly from Ethiopia and Mexico.

Australia's classic light-bodied precious opal from Coober Pedy, famed for milky white stones flashing pastel rainbow play-of-color.

The pure golden-yellow gem variety of beryl, colored by iron and valued for its clarity, brilliance, and durability.

A bright lemon-yellow opal, usually common opal, valued for its cheerful citrus color and translucent glow.

The classic green ornamental gem, either jadeite or nephrite, valued for millennia for its toughness and rich color, especially imperial green.

The serene blue-to-sea-green variety of beryl, aquamarine is a durable gemstone colored by trace iron and birthstone for March.

The blue color variety of beryl, ranging from pale sky tones to rich sea-blue, best known in its finest grades as aquamarine.

A rare iron-rich (ferric) species of the tourmaline group, dark brown to bronze-black, named after crystallographer Martin Buerger.