Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Naujaite
A sodalite-rich agpaitic nepheline syenite with poikilitic texture from the Ilimaussaq complex, packed with blue sodalite, eudialyte and arfvedsonite.
igneous
Zebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Carbonatite
A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.
igneous
Cordierite Hornfels
A tough, fine-grained contact-metamorphic rock containing cordierite, often spotted, formed by heat from nearby igneous intrusions.
metamorphic
Tufa
A porous, spongy freshwater limestone that precipitates around springs, streams and lakes, often encrusting plants and moss.
sedimentary
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Sinter
A chemical deposit precipitated around hot springs and geysers, either siliceous (geyserite) or calcareous, forming delicate terraces and crusts.
sedimentary
Argillite
Hardened, fine-grained mudrock intermediate between shale and slate, dense and non-fissile, often carved into ornaments.
sedimentary
Pseudotachylite
A dark, glassy rock formed when frictional heat from fault movement or impact melts rock along narrow veins.
metamorphic
Crinoidal Limestone
A fossiliferous limestone built largely from the disc-shaped skeletal plates of crinoids, marine animals known as sea lilies.
sedimentary
Skarn
A calc-silicate rock formed by chemical exchange between magma and carbonate rock, often rich in garnet and economically important ore minerals.
metamorphic
Verdite
A rich green, fuchsite-rich metamorphic rock from southern Africa, prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
metamorphic
Kersantite
A dark mica lamprophyre with biotite and augite phenocrysts in a plagioclase-dominated groundmass, the feldspar counterpart of minette.
igneous
Granodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneous
Ignimbrite
A rock formed from hot pyroclastic flows, often welded, sometimes containing flattened glass lenses called fiamme.
igneous
Greenschist
A green, foliated low-grade metamorphic rock colored by chlorite, actinolite, and epidote, marking the greenschist metamorphic facies.
metamorphic
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphic
Picture Jasper
An opaque brown chalcedony whose iron-stained banding mimics deserts, dunes, and distant mountain skylines.
mineralDiatomite
A soft, lightweight, chalky sedimentary rock made of the silica shells of microscopic diatoms, prized for its absorbency and filtering ability.
sedimentary
Shungite
A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.
sedimentary
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Halite
The natural mineral form of table salt, a soft, water-soluble evaporite that forms perfect cubic crystals and tastes salty.
mineralWyomingite
A rare ultrapotassic lamproite of leucite, phlogopite and diopside, named for and typified by Wyoming's Leucite Hills.
igneousGondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic