Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Cataclasite
A cohesive fault rock formed by brittle crushing and grinding of rock along a fault zone, with angular fragments in a fine matrix.
metamorphic
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous
Fossiliferous Limestone
Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.
sedimentary
Kambaba Jasper
A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.
sedimentary
Kersantite
A dark mica lamprophyre with biotite and augite phenocrysts in a plagioclase-dominated groundmass, the feldspar counterpart of minette.
igneous
Tactite
A contact-metasomatic calc-silicate rock, essentially a skarn, formed where intrusions react with carbonate rocks and often host ore.
metamorphic
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Calcilutite
A very fine-grained, mud-sized limestone formed from carbonate mud, smooth and dense with conchoidal fracture.
sedimentary
Lamprophyre
A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.
igneous
Monzonite
An intermediate plutonic rock with nearly equal alkali and plagioclase feldspar and very little quartz, sitting between diorite and syenite.
igneous
Shonkinite
A dark, mafic potassic alkaline rock rich in augite with alkali feldspar and often nepheline, classically forming the base of layered sills.
igneous
Limestone
A soft carbonate sedimentary rock made mostly of calcite, often packed with marine fossils and prone to forming caves.
sedimentarySölvsbergite
A fine-grained, sodic alkali-feldspar dike rock with trachytic texture, the silica-saturated counterpart to tinguaite.
igneousNaujaite
A sodalite-rich agpaitic nepheline syenite with poikilitic texture from the Ilimaussaq complex, packed with blue sodalite, eudialyte and arfvedsonite.
igneous
Melteigite
A dark, pyroxene-dominated plutonic rock at the mafic end of the ijolite series, made mainly of aegirine-augite with subordinate nepheline.
igneous
Diabase
A tough, dark, medium-grained igneous rock with the composition of basalt, common in dikes and sills.
igneous
Geode
A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.
mineral
Shelly Limestone
A limestone packed with visible shells and shell fragments, recording the accumulation of marine invertebrate remains on ancient sea floors.
sedimentary
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous
Diorite
A coarse-grained intrusive rock with a distinctive salt-and-pepper look, the plutonic equivalent of andesite.
igneous
Pyroxenite
A dense, dark ultramafic plutonic rock composed almost entirely of pyroxene minerals, often associated with peridotite and layered intrusions.
igneous
Chert
A hard, fine-grained sedimentary silica rock that breaks with sharp conchoidal edges, prized by ancient toolmakers.
sedimentary
Bostonite
A fine-grained, feldspar-rich dike rock with a trachytic texture, essentially a hypabyssal equivalent of trachyte or syenite.
igneous
Serpentinite
A green, often mottled metamorphic rock formed by the hydration of mantle rocks, soft and waxy with a smooth, slippery feel.
metamorphic