Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Khondalite
A high-grade metamorphic gneiss of garnet, sillimanite, quartz, and graphite, derived from ancient aluminous sediments.
metamorphic
Ribbon Jasper
A banded jasper showing parallel ribbon-like stripes of contrasting color formed by layered silica and mineral deposition.
mineral
Rhodonite
A rose-pink manganese silicate marbled with black veins, prized as a tough ornamental and occasionally faceted gemstone.
mineral
Leopard Skin Jasper
A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Royal Sahara Jasper
A warm desert-toned picture jasper trade stone with sandy tan, gold, and brown swirls evoking Saharan dunes.
mineral
Brecciated Jasper
A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.
sedimentary
Soapstone
A soft, talc-rich metamorphic rock with a soapy feel, easily carved and highly heat-resistant for cookware and sculpture.
metamorphic
Rainbow Velvet Obsidian
A natural sheen obsidian whose black glass displays a soft, velvety rainbow shimmer from aligned magnetite nanoparticles when polished and tilted.
igneous
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary
Picture Jasper
An opaque brown chalcedony whose iron-stained banding mimics deserts, dunes, and distant mountain skylines.
mineral
Asphalt Rock
A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.
sedimentary
Kiwi Jasper
A speckled green-and-black stone resembling kiwi fruit, technically a quartz-amazonite aggregate rather than true jasper.
mineral
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Gondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Cave Creek Jasper
An opaque jasper from the Cave Creek area of Arizona, prized for earthy mottled and banded patterns in warm desert tones.
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
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystal
Vogesite
A dark hornblende-rich lamprophyre dike rock with amphibole and augite phenocrysts in an alkali-feldspar-dominated groundmass.
igneous
Minette
A dark, mica-rich lamprophyre dike rock in which biotite and augite phenocrysts sit in a groundmass dominated by alkali feldspar.
igneous
Exotica Jasper
Also called Sci-Fi Jasper, a Mexican jasper-rhyolite with swirling abstract patterns in cream, tan, gray, pink, and green.
gemstone
Lujavrite
A dark, layered agpaitic nepheline syenite rich in sodic pyroxene and amphibole with eudialyte, from the Lovozero and Ilimaussaq complexes.
igneous
Pulaskite
A coarse-grained alkali syenite of perthitic feldspar with sodic pyroxene or amphibole and minor nepheline, from Pulaski County, Arkansas.
igneous
Nordmarkite
A light-colored alkali quartz syenite dominated by perthitic feldspar with minor quartz, from the Oslo igneous province of Norway.
igneous
Opalite
A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.
crystal