Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Golden Healer Quartz
Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.
crystalGolden Peacock Obsidian
A natural sheen obsidian showing a warm gold shimmer plus peacock iridescence, caused by aligned nanoparticle layers within black glass.
igneousPigeon Blood Agate
A richly colored red banded agate prized by lapidaries for its deep crimson-to-brown tones reminiscent of pigeon's blood.
gemstone
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystal
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Peacock Ore
A copper-iron sulfide ore famous for its iridescent peacock-like purple and blue tarnish; often sold as treated chalcopyrite.
mineralCarver Agate
A collectible Oregon plume and scenic agate with feathery red and gold inclusions suspended in translucent chalcedony.
gemstone
Red Obsidian
Volcanic glass tinted red by fine iron-oxide inclusions, often blended with black to form mahogany-patterned obsidian.
crystal
Mookaite
A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.
mineralSunset Agate
A warmly colored chalcedony agate with reds, oranges, golds, and pinks that blend like the glowing bands of a sunset sky.
gemstone
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Brown Obsidian
Obsidian colored brown by iron oxide inclusions, frequently banded or swirled with black as in mahogany obsidian.
igneous
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Garden Quartz
Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.
crystal
Gray Obsidian
Obsidian in gray tones, often semi-translucent, colored by light scattering and minor inclusions within the volcanic glass.
igneous
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Cat's Eye Pink Tourmaline
Pink tourmaline cut en cabochon to reveal a moving band of light, a phenomenal gem colored by manganese with parallel inclusions.
gemstoneOrange Obsidian
Obsidian colored orange by iron oxide inclusions; vivid uniform orange material is frequently manufactured glass rather than volcanic.
igneousPrase
An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.
crystalMint Opal
A soft mint-green variety of common opal, usually opaque and colored by trace copper or nontronite inclusions rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Menilite Opal
An opaque grey-brown common opal forming nodules and concretions, historically called liver opal for its dull brownish color.
mineral
Black Shale
Dark, organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock formed in oxygen-poor waters, often a source rock for oil and gas.
sedimentary
Chalcedony
A waxy, translucent microcrystalline form of quartz that serves as the parent group for agate, jasper, carnelian, and onyx.
mineral