Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Blue Chalcedony

A translucent, soft blue variety of microcrystalline quartz whose color comes from light scattering through its fine structure.

Pyralspite is the aluminum garnet series uniting pyrope, almandine, and spessartine, covering most red, orange, and purple gem garnets.

A striking lead chromate mineral prized for its brilliant orange-red prismatic crystals, with the finest specimens from Tasmania.

A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.

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

A gentle peachy-pink tourmaline blending soft pink and orange tones, a delicate pastel variety of elbaite.

A warm earth-toned jasper from Madagascar in flowing reds, oranges and golds, also called desert jasper, discovered in the early 2000s.

A brilliant orange-red lead vanadate mineral forming hexagonal crystals, prized by collectors and mined as an ore of vanadium.

An orbicular jasper with red and orange flower-like spots resembling poppies, famously from Morgan Hill, California.

A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.

A rare zinc oxide best known for its deep red to orange color, classically from Franklin, New Jersey, and as colorful man-made crystals.

A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by quartz with enough mica to give it a schistose, splitting fabric.

A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.