Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Teal Tourmaline
A sought-after elbaite tourmaline in teal hues that blend blue and green, prized for its ocean-like color.
gemstoneTrapiche Aquamarine
A rare blue beryl showing a fixed six-spoke wheel pattern caused by impurity inclusions arranged along the crystal's growth axis.
gemstone
Bostonite
A fine-grained, feldspar-rich dike rock with a trachytic texture, essentially a hypabyssal equivalent of trachyte or syenite.
igneous
Schist
A medium-grade metamorphic rock rich in aligned platy minerals that gives it a shiny, easily splitting, foliated texture.
metamorphicDragon Vein Agate
A treated chalcedony with a network of crackled veins, usually heated and dyed in vivid colors for affordable, eye-catching beads.
gemstoneSwazi Lace Agate
A swirling, intricately banded lace agate from Eswatini (Swaziland) in soft greys, blues and lavenders with delicate folded patterns.
gemstoneCat's Eye Moonstone
A moonstone variety displaying a moving band of light (chatoyancy) across its surface in addition to the classic moonstone glow.
gemstone
Slawsonite
A rare strontium-dominant feldspar, the strontium analogue of paracelsian, found in metamorphosed strontium-rich and manganese-bearing rocks.
mineral
Maskelynite
A natural glass formed when plagioclase feldspar is transformed by shock pressure during meteorite impacts, preserving crystal shape but losing crystal structure.
mineral
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineralGondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
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
Paraiba Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline famed for its electric neon blue-green color and extreme rarity and value.
gemstone
Buddingtonite
A rare ammonium feldspar formed by hydrothermal alteration, in which ammonium ions replace potassium, and a useful exploration indicator.
mineral
Sodalite
A royal-blue feldspathoid mineral with white calcite veining, often confused with lapis lazuli but lacking its golden pyrite flecks.
mineralTeal Obsidian
A deep teal glass sold as obsidian; the saturated blue-green color is manufactured and not found in natural volcanic glass.
igneous
Gahnite
A hard zinc-rich member of the spinel group, usually dark blue-green to black, forming octahedral crystals in metamorphic and pegmatitic rocks.
mineral
Zircon
A natural zirconium silicate gem with high brilliance and fire, often confused with the synthetic imitation cubic zirconia.
gemstonePeach Moonstone
A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.
gemstone
Limburgite
A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.
igneous
Celsian
A rare barium-rich feldspar that forms in manganese and barium-enriched metamorphic and hydrothermal deposits, the barium end-member of the feldspar family.
mineral
Red Jasper
An opaque, iron-rich variety of microcrystalline quartz known for its deep brick-red color and ancient history as a stone of strength and grounding.
gemstone
Foitite
A rare alkali-deficient tourmaline whose X crystal site is largely vacant, giving slender dark blue to bluish-black crystals.
mineral
Angelite
A soft pale-blue calcium sulfate, the anhydrous form of gypsum, prized as a gentle, calming tumbled stone.
mineral