Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Honey Garnet
A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.
gemstoneMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstone
Harzburgite
A depleted mantle peridotite of olivine and orthopyroxene, the refractory residue left after basaltic melt is extracted from the mantle.
igneous
Peach Garnet
A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.
gemstone
Phosphorite
Phosphate-rich sedimentary rock, the world's main source of phosphorus for fertilizers, formed in nutrient-rich marine settings.
sedimentaryPriday Plume Agate
A classic Oregon plume agate from the Priday Ranch beds, showing feathery mineral plumes suspended in translucent chalcedony.
gemstone
Malachite
A vivid green copper carbonate mineral famous for swirling concentric bands, used as an ore of copper and an ornamental gemstone.
mineral
Lemon Quartz
A vivid greenish-yellow quartz, usually heat-treated or irradiated, prized for its clean clarity and bright lemon color.
crystal
Purple-Pink Tourmaline
Elbaite tourmaline in purplish-pink to magenta hues, colored by manganese, prized for its vivid orchid-like tones.
gemstoneAlabaster
A soft, fine-grained, translucent form of gypsum (or banded calcite) long prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
mineral
Tantalite
A dense black iron-manganese tantalate that is the chief ore of tantalum, forming a series with columbite and mined as coltan.
mineral
Ilmenite
Ilmenite is the world's leading source of titanium, a heavy iron-black oxide common in mafic rocks and black sands.
mineral
Pyromorphite
A lead phosphate secondary mineral known for barrel-shaped green to yellow crystals formed in oxidized lead deposits.
mineral
Ocean Jasper
A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.
sedimentary
Bauxite
An earthy aluminum-rich residual rock and the world's principal ore of aluminum, often showing distinctive pea-like pisolites.
sedimentary
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineral
Cinnabar
A bright red mercury sulfide, the chief ore of mercury and the historic source of the pigment vermilion.
mineral
Hyalophane
A barium-bearing potassium feldspar intermediate between orthoclase and celsian, found in barium-rich metamorphic and ore deposits.
mineral
Garnierite
A vivid green hydrous nickel-magnesium silicate that is a major ore of nickel, mined from weathered ultramafic rocks.
mineral
Smithsonite
Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.
mineralCarrasite Jasper
An orbicular Madagascar jasper related to ocean jasper, showing eyes and swirls in cream, green, and earthy tones.
mineral
Metagabbro
Coarse-grained gabbro that has been metamorphosed, partly recrystallizing into amphibole, plagioclase, and other metamorphic minerals.
metamorphic
Pyroxenite
A dense, dark ultramafic plutonic rock composed almost entirely of pyroxene minerals, often associated with peridotite and layered intrusions.
igneous
Hessonite Garnet
The cinnamon-to-honey colored variety of grossular garnet, prized in jewelry and revered as the gem 'gomed' in Vedic astrology.
gemstone