Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Sugilite

A rare deep-purple manganese-bearing silicate, mostly from South Africa, prized for its vivid violet color.

Obsidian containing spherulites — small radiating spheres of feldspar and cristobalite that crystallized within the cooling volcanic glass.

A pale rock made almost entirely of the sodium feldspar albite, formed by sodic magmatism or sodium metasomatism.

A dark mica lamprophyre with biotite and augite phenocrysts in a plagioclase-dominated groundmass, the feldspar counterpart of minette.

A soft, green iron-potassium mica that forms in marine sediments and gives greensand its characteristic olive color.

A premium dark Finnish labradorite displaying the full color spectrum of iridescent flashes, prized as one of the most vivid feldspar gems.

A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.

A coarse-grained, feldspar-free plutonic rock composed mainly of nepheline and sodic pyroxene, the intrusive equivalent of nephelinite.

A soft lithium-bearing mica with a lilac to purple color and pearly, flaky sheen, an important ore of lithium.

A group of coarse, water-rich plutonic rocks dominated by large hornblende crystals set in feldspar, intermediate between lamprophyre and diorite.

A rare ultrapotassic lamproite rich in phlogopite mica and diopside, classically from the Leucite Hills of Wyoming.

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