Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Bumblebee Jasper

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

A calc-silicate rock formed by chemical exchange between magma and carbonate rock, often rich in garnet and economically important ore minerals.

A rare black carbon-rich rock from Russia, noted for containing fullerenes and ranging from dull mineralized stone to lustrous noble shungite.

A limestone packed with visible shells and shell fragments, recording the accumulation of marine invertebrate remains on ancient sea floors.

A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.

A soft copper sulfide famous for its intense indigo-blue color and dazzling iridescent metallic sheen, prized by collectors.

The rare colorless variety of tourmaline, named from the Greek for 'without color' and prized by collectors.

A rare Australian jasper from the Pilbara with bold red, yellow, and black abstract patterns, prized by collectors.

A dark gray copper sulfide that is one of the richest copper ores, prized by collectors when found as rare sharp crystals.

The rare colorless-to-white grossular garnet, also called leuco garnet, prized by collectors for its purity and unusual lack of color.

The colorless to milky-white variety of beryl, known mineralogically as goshenite and once used to imitate diamond and other gems.

A rare mushroom-shaped tourmaline growth habit, typically magnesium-rich dravite/uvite, prized by collectors for its fungus-like cap-and-stem form.