Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Magnesite

A magnesium carbonate mineral, usually chalky white with grey veining, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.

A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.

A hydrated volcanic glass with pearly, onion-like concentric cracks that pops into lightweight white granules when heated.

Clear or smoky quartz threaded with golden to reddish needles of rutile, also poetically called Venus hair stone.

A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.

A clear, soft crystalline variety of gypsum that forms glassy or fibrous wands, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.

An orbicular jasper with red and orange flower-like spots resembling poppies, famously from Morgan Hill, California.

A soft carbonate sedimentary rock made mostly of calcite, often packed with marine fossils and prone to forming caves.

A brown fossiliferous chalcedony packed with spiral freshwater snail shells, technically agatized fossil rock from Wyoming.

A brecciated, chatoyant quartz with swirling blue, gold, and brown fibers that shimmer like a stormy sky.

A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.

A dull, resinous volcanic glass similar to obsidian but with higher water content and a waxy pitch-like luster.

Obsidian that has partly crystallized over time, growing pale spherulite clusters within the black glass, as in snowflake obsidian.

A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.