Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Dendritic Agate
A translucent chalcedony decorated with branching, fern-like manganese or iron oxide inclusions resembling tiny plants.
mineral
Galena
A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.
mineral
Sodalite
A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.
mineral
Paraiba Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline famed for its electric neon blue-green color and extreme rarity and value.
gemstone
Gondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Tonalite
A quartz-rich plutonic rock dominated by plagioclase feldspar with little alkali feldspar, closely related to granodiorite and quartz diorite.
igneous
Zircon
A natural zirconium silicate gem with high brilliance and fire, often confused with the synthetic imitation cubic zirconia.
gemstone
Super Seven
A trade name for quartz containing a combination of seven minerals including amethyst, smoky quartz, and cacoxenite, prized by collectors.
crystal
Black Opal
The rarest and most valuable opal, with a dark body tone that makes its flashing rainbow play-of-color blaze brilliantly.
gemstone
Graphic Feldspar
A pegmatite rock of feldspar intergrown with wedge-shaped quartz that resembles ancient runic or Hebrew writing.
igneous
Gary Green Jasper
An Oregon jasper, also called larsonite, of silicified fossil wood showing olive-green fields laced with black dendritic patterns.
mineral
Monzonite
An intermediate plutonic rock with nearly equal alkali and plagioclase feldspar and very little quartz, sitting between diorite and syenite.
igneous
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Metasandstone
Sandstone altered by metamorphism, with partly recrystallized quartz grains, transitional between true sandstone and quartzite.
metamorphic
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous
Brandberg Amethyst
A prized Namibian quartz combining amethyst, smoky, and clear quartz in single crystals, often with phantoms and enhydros.
crystal
Chert
A hard, fine-grained sedimentary silica rock that breaks with sharp conchoidal edges, prized by ancient toolmakers.
sedimentary
Dalmatian Stone
A cream-colored feldspar-and-quartz rock peppered with dark spots, named for its resemblance to a Dalmatian dog.
igneous
Bloodstone
A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.
gemstone
Loess
A loose, wind-blown silt deposit, typically buff-colored and very fertile, that forms thick blankets and stands in steep cliffs.
sedimentary
Porcelanite
A hard, fine-grained siliceous rock with a dull porcelain-like texture, intermediate between soft diatomite and dense chert.
sedimentary
Sesame Jasper
A finely speckled pale jasper trade stone named for its sesame-seed-like flecks, closely related to Kiwi Jasper.
mineral