Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Lamproite

A rare ultrapotassic, magnesium-rich volcanic rock from deep in the mantle, famous as the diamond host at Argyle in Australia.

A natural sheen obsidian whose black glass displays a soft, velvety rainbow shimmer from aligned magnetite nanoparticles when polished and tilted.

A hydrated silica gemstone famous for its shimmering play-of-color, ranging from white and black opal to fiery orange fire opal.

A rare alkali-deficient tourmaline whose X crystal site is largely vacant, giving slender dark blue to bluish-black crystals.

A natural sheen obsidian showing a warm gold shimmer plus peacock iridescence, caused by aligned nanoparticle layers within black glass.

A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.

A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.

A calcium titanium silicate, gem-known as sphene, famous for fiery dispersion that exceeds diamond and rich green-to-yellow colors.

A rare agate that forms naturally with flat polygonal faces and angular geometric shapes rather than the usual rounded nodule.

A blue-violet zoisite found only in Tanzania, famous for its vivid trichroic color and rarity.

A fine-grained, low-grade metamorphic rock that splits into flat sheets along slaty cleavage, long used for roofing and flooring.

A striking blue aluminum silicate famous for bladed crystals and anisotropic hardness that differs dramatically along and across the blade.

A chromium-dominant tourmaline related to dravite, producing intensely deep green to blackish-green crystals from chromium-rich metamorphic rocks.

A fine-grained sedimentary rock of compacted clay and silt that, unlike shale, breaks in blocks rather than thin layers.