Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Lapis Lazuli

An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.

A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.

A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.

A depleted mantle peridotite of olivine and orthopyroxene, the refractory residue left after basaltic melt is extracted from the mantle.

An ultramafic intrusive rock made almost entirely of olivine, representing mantle material.

A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.

A rare ultramafic volcanic rock that erupts from deep in the mantle and is the primary natural source of diamonds.

Siderite is an iron carbonate ore, a brown rhombohedral mineral of the calcite group found in sediments and veins.

A chromium-rich magnesium garnet of the pyrope series that crystallizes in the deep mantle and is a valuable diamond indicator mineral.

A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.

A rare ultrapotassic, magnesium-rich volcanic rock from deep in the mantle, famous as the diamond host at Argyle in Australia.

Tourmaline displaying chatoyancy, a moving band of light caused by parallel tube-like inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.

Fossil shells whose original material has been replaced by opal, preserving ancient marine forms in common or precious opal.

Pink beryl (morganite) that shows chatoyancy, a moving band of light, when cut as a cabochon, thanks to parallel tube inclusions.

Beryl displaying chatoyancy, a bright moving band of light, caused by parallel tube-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.