Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Flower Jasper
A jasper whose radiating mineral clusters form flower-like rosettes scattered across an earthy background.
mineral
Moonstone
A feldspar gem famous for adularescence, a floating blue-white glow that shimmers across the stone like moonlight.
gemstone
White Moonstone
The classic moonstone: a milky-white feldspar showing the prized floating blue-to-silver adularescent glow that gives the gem its name.
gemstoneGirasol Opal
A transparent to milky opal that displays a soft bluish-white internal glow or sheen that seems to follow the light source.
gemstonePrase
An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.
crystal
Moss Opal
A common opal containing moss- or fern-like mineral inclusions that resemble plants suspended in a pale silica body.
gemstone
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Dumortierite
A hard aluminum borosilicate famous for its rich denim-blue color, often forming dense fibrous masses or coloring quartz blue.
mineralWoodbine Jasper
An earthy-toned jasper with vine-like or scenic patterning, valued by lapidaries for warm browns, reds, and creams that polish to a smooth finish.
gemstone
Norite
A coarse-grained mafic plutonic rock similar to gabbro but with orthopyroxene as the dominant pyroxene instead of clinopyroxene.
igneous
Shattuckite
A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.
mineralGary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineral
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Amazonite
The blue-green gem variety of microcline feldspar, often mottled with white, prized as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineralRainbow Moonstone
A near-colorless feldspar showing blue and multicolored sheen; gemologically a white labradorite rather than true orthoclase moonstone.
gemstone
Hemimorphite
A hydrous zinc silicate, often sky-blue, that is an ore of zinc and a collectible mineral forming botryoidal crusts and crystals.
mineral
Poppy Jasper
An orbicular jasper with red and orange flower-like spots resembling poppies, famously from Morgan Hill, California.
mineral
Bornite
A copper iron sulfide famous for its vivid iridescent purple-blue tarnish, the classic peacock ore and a copper ore.
mineral
Scheelite
Scheelite is a calcium tungstate ore of tungsten, famous for its brilliant blue-white fluorescence under ultraviolet light.
mineral
Smithsonite
Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.
mineral
Adularia
A low-temperature potassium feldspar famous for forming transparent Alpine crystals and the gem moonstone, which shows a floating blue sheen called adularescence.
mineralPolychrome Jasper
A warm earth-toned jasper from Madagascar in flowing reds, oranges and golds, also called desert jasper, discovered in the early 2000s.
gemstoneImperial Jasper
A prized Mexican jasper known for pastel green, lavender, and cream orbicular patterns that take an exceptional polish.
mineralElephant Skin Jasper
A gray-brown jasper whose mottled, wrinkled patterning resembles elephant hide, also sold as Miriam or calligraphy stone.
mineral