Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Pastel Tourmaline

A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.

Tourmaline colored by copper, producing the famous vivid neon blues, greens and teals known commercially as Paraiba-type gems.

A colorful trade-name material, often dyed and reconstituted, sold as jasper; vivid blues and greens are typically artificially enhanced.

Tourmaline displaying chatoyancy, a moving band of light caused by parallel tube-like inclusions, when cut as a cabochon.

Pink beryl (morganite) that shows chatoyancy, a moving band of light, when cut as a cabochon, thanks to parallel tube inclusions.

Beryl displaying chatoyancy, a bright moving band of light, caused by parallel tube-like inclusions when cut as a cabochon.