Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Hot Pink Tourmaline
An intensely saturated hot-pink to magenta elbaite tourmaline, among the most vivid and eye-catching of all pink rubellites.
gemstone
Forest Green Tourmaline
A deep, rich forest-green elbaite tourmaline (verdelite) colored mainly by iron, with strong pleochroism and excellent durability.
gemstone
Bi-Color Tourmaline
Tourmaline displaying two distinct colors in a single crystal, a natural color-zoning effect that makes each stone unique.
gemstone
Cat's Eye Green Tourmaline
Green tourmaline cut as a cabochon to show a sharp moving band of light (chatoyancy) caused by fine parallel inclusions.
gemstone
Lemurian Seed Quartz
Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.
crystal
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstone
Golden Healer Quartz
Quartz colored or coated by golden iron oxides such as limonite or goethite, giving a warm sunlit yellow glow.
crystal
Quartz-mica Schist
A foliated metamorphic rock of interlayered quartz and mica, producing a sparkling, easily split rock from metamorphosed sandy shales.
metamorphic
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.
gemstone
Buergerite
A rare iron-rich (ferric) species of the tourmaline group, dark brown to bronze-black, named after crystallographer Martin Buerger.
mineral
Dravite
The magnesium-rich brown member of the tourmaline group, named for Austria's Drava River and prized for warm earthy tones.
mineral
Povondraite
A rare ferric-iron-dominant tourmaline that forms in oxidized evaporite settings, appearing as black to red-brown prismatic crystals.
mineral
Schorlomite
A lustrous black titanium-rich garnet of the andradite series, found in alkaline igneous rocks like nepheline syenite and ijolite.
mineral
Foitite
A rare alkali-deficient tourmaline whose X crystal site is largely vacant, giving slender dark blue to bluish-black crystals.
mineral
Feruvite
A calcium- and ferrous-iron-rich tourmaline, the iron analogue of uvite, forming dark brown to black crystals in skarns and metamorphic rocks.
mineral
Rubellite
The red to raspberry-pink variety of tourmaline, prized for its vivid ruby-like color that holds under both daylight and artificial light.
gemstone
Achroite
The rare colorless variety of tourmaline, named from the Greek for 'without color' and prized by collectors.
gemstone
Indicolite
The blue variety of tourmaline, a relatively rare and prized color ranging from teal and greenish blue to deep indigo.
gemstone
Uvite
A calcium-magnesium tourmaline that forms in metamorphosed limestones, typically dark green to brown and often in well-formed crystals.
mineral
Chrome-Dravite
A chromium-dominant tourmaline related to dravite, producing intensely deep green to blackish-green crystals from chromium-rich metamorphic rocks.
mineral
Olenite
A rare aluminum-rich species of the tourmaline group, usually colorless to pale, named for the Olenii Range in Russia's Kola Peninsula.
mineral
Tsilaisite
A manganese-dominant tourmaline, the source of bright yellow to greenish-yellow gem tourmaline, named for its Madagascar type locality.
mineral
Siberite
A historic name for the red-violet to purplish lithium tourmaline first prized from Siberia, closely tied to the rubellite variety.
gemstone
Dalmatian Jasper
A cream-colored spotted stone resembling a Dalmatian dog, made of feldspar and quartz dotted with dark mineral grains.
igneous