Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Smithsonite

Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.

A rare breccia formed by meteorite impact, containing shocked rock fragments and glassy melt blobs welded together.

A glassy calcium borosilicate forming wedge-tipped prismatic crystals, usually colorless to pale yellow or pink, sometimes faceted as a gem.

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

A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.