Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Leopard Obsidian
Black volcanic glass marked with rounded spots and patches that resemble a leopard's coat, caused by spherulitic crystallization.
igneousLace Obsidian
Black volcanic glass laced with delicate web-like veins of contrasting color, formed by flow banding and fine crystallization.
igneous
Moldavite
A rare forest-green natural glass formed by a meteorite impact about 15 million years ago, found mainly in the Czech Republic.
gemstoneHydroandradite
A hydrous, iron-rich garnet of the hydrogarnet group in which hydroxyl groups substitute for silica within the andradite structure.
mineral
Pyrrhotite
A bronze-colored iron sulfide notable for being the most magnetic of the common sulfide minerals and an important nickel host.
mineral
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Katoite
The water-rich end-member of the hydrogrossular series, a soft hydrogarnet found in altered rocks and known from cement chemistry.
mineral
Hibschite
A hydrous aluminum garnet (hydrogrossular) intermediate between grossular and katoite, common in altered calcium-rich and serpentinized rocks.
mineral
Ignimbrite
A rock formed from hot pyroclastic flows, often welded, sometimes containing flattened glass lenses called fiamme.
igneous
Buddingtonite
A rare ammonium feldspar formed by hydrothermal alteration, in which ammonium ions replace potassium, and a useful exploration indicator.
mineral
Apophyllite
A glassy, often colorless silicate that forms pyramid-tipped cubes and is famed for its pearly basal cleavage and watery clarity.
crystal
Smithsonite
Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.
mineral
Kenyte
A rare glassy phonolitic lava with rhomb-shaped anorthoclase phenocrysts and olivine, named for Mount Kenya.
igneous
Anorthoclase
A sodium-rich alkali feldspar of sodic volcanic rocks, sometimes forming large glassy crystals and the blue-flashing feldspar in larvikite.
mineral
Suevite
A rare breccia formed by meteorite impact, containing shocked rock fragments and glassy melt blobs welded together.
metamorphic
Orthoclase
A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.
mineral