Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Jasper
An opaque, often colorfully patterned variety of chalcedony quartz, popular for tumbling, carving, and jewelry.
mineral
Uvite
A calcium-magnesium tourmaline that forms in metamorphosed limestones, typically dark green to brown and often in well-formed crystals.
mineralPipestone
A soft, fine-grained red metamorphosed claystone, sacred to many Native American peoples and carved into ceremonial pipes.
metamorphic
Pyromorphite
A lead phosphate secondary mineral known for barrel-shaped green to yellow crystals formed in oxidized lead deposits.
mineralStrawberry Obsidian
A pink-red glass sold as obsidian, sometimes with metallic flecks; the strawberry color is manufactured rather than a natural volcanic glass tone.
igneous
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineral
Menilite Opal
An opaque grey-brown common opal forming nodules and concretions, historically called liver opal for its dull brownish color.
mineral
Andesine
An intermediate plagioclase feldspar between albite and anorthite, marketed as a red to champagne gemstone, sometimes color-treated.
gemstone
Cherry Opal
A translucent red opal, closely related to Mexican fire opal, glowing with a warm cherry-red body color often free of play-of-color.
gemstone
Orange Tourmaline
A warm orange to tangerine tourmaline, an uncommon hue produced by manganese and iron in the crystal.
gemstone
Rubellite
The red to raspberry-pink variety of tourmaline, prized for its vivid ruby-like color that holds under both daylight and artificial light.
gemstone
Mushroom Tourmaline
A rare mushroom-shaped tourmaline growth habit, typically magnesium-rich dravite/uvite, prized by collectors for its fungus-like cap-and-stem form.
mineral
Vanadinite
A brilliant orange-red lead vanadate mineral forming hexagonal crystals, prized by collectors and mined as an ore of vanadium.
mineralStone Canyon Jasper
A warm-toned brecciated jasper from central California known for swirling browns, golds, and creams broken by darker seams.
gemstone
Sodalite
A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.
mineralMustard Tourmaline
A warm mustard to brownish-yellow tourmaline, colored by iron or manganese, sitting between yellow and brown dravite tones.
gemstone
Erythrite
A soft pink to crimson hydrated cobalt arsenate, famous as cobalt bloom that signals nearby cobalt ores.
mineral
Picture Jasper
An opaque brown chalcedony whose iron-stained banding mimics deserts, dunes, and distant mountain skylines.
mineral
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
Raspberry Beryl
A trade name for raspberry-pink beryl-family gems, most often the cesium-rich mineral pezzottaite from Madagascar.
gemstone
Niccolite
A pale copper-red nickel arsenide, historically called kupfernickel, that is an ore of nickel and gives the metal its name.
mineral
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous
Pyrargyrite
A silver antimony sulfosalt known as dark ruby silver, an important silver ore with deep red internal reflections.
mineral
Cuprite
Cuprite is a deep red copper oxide and an important secondary copper ore, prized for its rare ruby-red gem crystals.
mineral