Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Pink Garnet
A trade name for pink garnets, mainly rhodolite, a rose-to-purplish pyrope-almandine blend prized for its bright clean color.
gemstone
Green Beryl
Light green beryl colored mainly by iron, distinguished from emerald, which owes its deeper green to chromium or vanadium.
gemstone
Peacock Ore
A copper-iron sulfide ore famous for its iridescent peacock-like purple and blue tarnish; often sold as treated chalcopyrite.
mineralGreen Jade
The classic green ornamental gem, either jadeite or nephrite, valued for millennia for its toughness and rich color, especially imperial green.
gemstoneMorado Opal
Mexican purple common opal, "morado" meaning purple in Spanish, valued for its violet color and reputed UV color-shift.
gemstone
Orange Opal
A vivid orange opal, classically Mexican fire opal, prized for its bright, fiery body color that glows when backlit.
gemstone
Cognac Tourmaline
A warm cognac-brown to reddish-brown tourmaline, typically magnesium-rich dravite, prized for its rich whisky-like color.
gemstone
Hyalite Opal
A clear, glassy, botryoidal common opal famous for its intense green fluorescence under UV light, caused by trace uranium.
gemstone
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineralChrome Spessartine
Chrome Spessartine is a rare chromium-bearing manganese garnet whose trace chromium intensifies its already vivid orange color.
gemstone
Willemite
A zinc silicate famous for its brilliant green fluorescence under shortwave UV light, especially from Franklin, New Jersey.
mineralSesame Jasper
A finely speckled pale jasper trade stone named for its sesame-seed-like flecks, closely related to Kiwi Jasper.
mineral
Cuprite
Cuprite is a deep red copper oxide and an important secondary copper ore, prized for its rare ruby-red gem crystals.
mineral
Green Marble
A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.
metamorphicLuxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneousSunset Opal
An opal with warm sunset hues of orange, amber, and red, prized for its glowing fiery body color reminiscent of dusk skies.
gemstone
Condor Agate
A vividly banded fortification agate from Argentina prized for its bold red, gold and white concentric patterns.
gemstoneBlue Line Jasper
A pale jasper crossed by distinctive blue-gray veins or lines, valued by lapidaries for its calm color contrast.
gemstone
Diamond
The hardest known natural material, a crystalline form of pure carbon prized as the ultimate gemstone for its brilliance and fire.
gemstone
Mustard Jasper
A warm mustard-to-ochre yellow jasper colored by iron, valued by lapidaries for its rich, earthy golden tone.
gemstoneSnakeskin Jasper
An opaque patterned jasper named for its scaly, snakeskin-like surface markings of interlocking tan and brown cells.
mineral
Pyrope Garnet
The magnesium-rich garnet famed for its intense blood-red 'fire,' historically the Bohemian garnet of Victorian jewelry.
gemstonePearl
An organic gem formed inside mollusks from layered nacre, prized for its iridescent luster and classic elegance.
gemstone
Velvet Opal
Opal with a soft, velvety surface sheen rather than sharp play-of-color, prized for its gentle glow.
gemstone