Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Bumblebee Jasper

A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.

A green, often mottled metamorphic rock formed by the hydration of mantle rocks, soft and waxy with a smooth, slippery feel.

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

A bronze-colored iron sulfide notable for being the most magnetic of the common sulfide minerals and an important nickel host.

A common opal containing dendritic or mossy mineral inclusions that form miniature landscape-like scenes inside the stone.

A foliated metamorphic rock of calcite mixed with mica, quartz, and calc-silicate minerals, derived from marly sediments.

Tourmaline displaying two distinct colors in a single crystal, a natural color-zoning effect that makes each stone unique.

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

The natural crystal form of morganite, the manganese-colored pink-to-peach variety of beryl popular in romantic jewelry.

A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.

A trade name sometimes used for pink beryl (morganite), the manganese-colored rose-to-peach variety of the emerald mineral.

A very soft sulfate mineral defining Mohs 2, occurring as selenite, satin spar, alabaster, and desert rose, used to make plaster.

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