Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Flower Agate
A creamy pink-and-white chalcedony from Madagascar containing flower-like plume inclusions that resemble blossoms suspended in stone.
gemstone
Septarian Concretion
A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.
sedimentary
Novaculite
An extremely fine-grained, dense siliceous rock famous as Arkansas whetstone, prized for sharpening fine cutting tools.
sedimentary
Watermelon Tourmaline
A striking color-zoned tourmaline with a pink center and green rind, resembling a slice of watermelon when cut across the crystal.
gemstoneMalaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstone
Bloodstone
A dark green chalcedony speckled with blood-red spots of iron oxide, traditionally known as heliotrope.
gemstone
Quartz Schist
A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by quartz with enough mica to give it a schistose, splitting fabric.
metamorphic
Celestite
A soft, sky-blue strontium sulfate mineral famous for the glittering pale-blue crystal geodes from Madagascar.
mineral
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
Cherry Opal
A translucent red opal, closely related to Mexican fire opal, glowing with a warm cherry-red body color often free of play-of-color.
gemstone
Pumice
A frothy, lightweight volcanic glass so full of gas bubbles that it can float on water.
igneousPipestone
A soft, fine-grained red metamorphosed claystone, sacred to many Native American peoples and carved into ceremonial pipes.
metamorphic
Jade
A tough, prized ornamental gem that is actually two distinct minerals, jadeite and nephrite, revered for millennia in many cultures.
gemstone
Black Tourmaline
The opaque black iron-rich variety of tourmaline (schorl), forming striated prismatic crystals popular as a protective grounding stone.
mineral
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentaryMahenge Garnet
Mahenge Garnet is a pyrope-spessartine gem from Tanzania's Mahenge region, prized for vivid pink, purple, and color-change tones.
gemstone
Turquoise
A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.
mineral
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphicPeach Opal
A gentle peach-to-apricot opal, mostly common opal colored by trace iron, prized for its soft warm pastel body.
gemstone
Blue Apatite
A blue calcium phosphate mineral with vivid color and middling hardness, the same mineral family that forms bones and teeth.
mineral
Dragon Garnet
A trade name for deep wine-red garnet, typically a rich pyrope-almandine stone marketed for its dramatic, fiery color.
gemstone
Pastel Tourmaline
A trade name for lightly saturated elbaite tourmalines in delicate pastel pinks, mints, peaches, and blues popular in modern jewelry.
gemstone
Red Tourmaline
Vivid red to raspberry tourmaline, the most intense colors are marketed as rubellite, colored by manganese in the elbaite structure.
gemstone
Ruin Marble
A fractured fine-grained limestone whose iron-stained crack networks form natural scenes resembling ruined cities and landscapes.
sedimentary