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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.