Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Leuco Garnet
The rare colorless variety of grossular garnet, a near-flawless transparent gem free of the iron and chromium that color most garnets.
gemstone
Rosolite Garnet
A rose-pink variety of grossular garnet from Mexico, also known as landerite or xalostocite, prized for its soft pink color.
gemstone
Blue Kyanite
A striking blue aluminum silicate famous for bladed crystals and anisotropic hardness that differs dramatically along and across the blade.
mineral
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineral
Cinnamon Stone
The warm cinnamon-to-honey-brown variety of grossular garnet, also known as hessonite, with a characteristic swirly internal texture.
gemstone
Wolframite
Wolframite is the historic principal ore of tungsten, a heavy black tungstate forming bladed crystals in granite veins.
mineral
Demantoid Garnet
A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.
gemstone
White Garnet
The rare colorless-to-white grossular garnet, also called leuco garnet, prized by collectors for its purity and unusual lack of color.
gemstone
Tanzanite
A blue-violet zoisite found only in Tanzania, famous for its vivid trichroic color and rarity.
gemstone
Rhyolite
A fine-grained, silica-rich volcanic rock that is the extrusive equivalent of granite, often pale, banded, or flow-textured.
igneous
Black Garnet
An opaque black garnet — typically titanium-bearing melanite andradite — historically cut for mourning and Victorian jewelry.
gemstone
Banded Agate
The classic agate defined by concentric or parallel bands of chalcedony in varied colors, the archetype of all agate varieties.
gemstone
Achroite
The rare colorless variety of tourmaline, named from the Greek for 'without color' and prized by collectors.
gemstone
Yellow Garnet
A trade term for yellow garnets, including golden grossular, yellow andradite (topazolite), and yellow-green Mali garnet.
gemstone
Sapphire
The gem variety of corundum in every color except red, most prized in velvety blue and exceptionally hard and durable.
gemstone
Indicolite
The blue variety of tourmaline, a relatively rare and prized color ranging from teal and greenish blue to deep indigo.
gemstone
Red Opal
An opal with a deep red body color, often a variety of Mexican fire opal, prized for its warm, glowing intensity.
gemstone
Lavender Opal
A pastel purple variety of common opal, valued for its gentle lilac body color rather than any play-of-color.
gemstone
Larimar
A rare sky-blue variety of pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic, prized for its sea-like color and white volcanic patterning.
gemstone
Chrysoberyl
An exceptionally hard beryllium aluminum oxide prized for golden hues, sharp cat's-eye effect, and the rare color-change alexandrite variety.
gemstone
Blue Beryl
The blue color variety of beryl, ranging from pale sky tones to rich sea-blue, best known in its finest grades as aquamarine.
gemstone
Wehrite
An ultramafic rock of olivine and clinopyroxene, a peridotite variety common as cumulate layers in mafic intrusions.
igneous
Goshenite Crystal
The pure colorless variety of beryl, valued as crystal specimens and as a brilliant alternative to clearer gemstones.
crystal
Graphite Schist
A dark, foliated schist rich in graphite that leaves a grey-black mark and forms from metamorphosed carbon-rich sediments.
metamorphic