Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Paragonite Schist

A pale, silvery schist dominated by paragonite, the sodium-rich white mica, formed in aluminous metamorphic rocks.

Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.

A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.

Coarse, clear-to-white crystalline calcite that cements limestones, contrasting with fine muddy micrite.

A sodium-rich alkali feldspar of sodic volcanic rocks, sometimes forming large glassy crystals and the blue-flashing feldspar in larvikite.

A high-temperature potassium feldspar that forms glassy crystals in fast-cooled volcanic rocks, sometimes cut as a moonstone gem.

A calcium- and ferrous-iron-rich tourmaline, the iron analogue of uvite, forming dark brown to black crystals in skarns and metamorphic rocks.

A chromium-dominant tourmaline related to dravite, producing intensely deep green to blackish-green crystals from chromium-rich metamorphic rocks.

A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.

A dark, foliated schist rich in graphite that leaves a grey-black mark and forms from metamorphosed carbon-rich sediments.

A pale chalcedony agate with cloudy, frost-like white patterning suggesting frost on a window or icy crystalline textures.

A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.

A vivid greenish-yellow quartz, usually heat-treated or irradiated, prized for its clean clarity and bright lemon color.

A glassy, jet-black volcanic rock formed when lava cools too fast to crystallize, prized for razor-sharp conchoidal edges.

A rare zirconium-bearing garnet that crystallizes in carbonatites and alkaline rocks, first described from Magnet Cove, Arkansas.