Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Smithsonite
Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.
mineral
Wonderstone
A banded rhyolitic volcanic rock with swirling tan, red, and yellow iron-oxide layers prized as a decorative picture stone.
igneous
Septarian Concretion
A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.
sedimentary
Macusanite
A rare translucent yellow-green volcanic glass from the Macusani region of Peru, valued by faceters and sometimes confused with tektites.
igneous
Millerite
A nickel sulfide famous for delicate brass-yellow hairlike crystals that form radiating sprays inside cavities and geodes.
mineral
Flame Agate
A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.
gemstone
Fire Opal
A translucent to transparent opal in warm yellow, orange, and red tones, prized for body color rather than play-of-color.
gemstone
Prehnite
A translucent yellow-green silicate famous for its botryoidal 'grape' clusters, often hosting needle-like sprays of black epidote.
mineral
Palagonite
A yellow-brown alteration material formed when basaltic volcanic glass reacts with water, common in hydrovolcanic tuffs and pillow lavas.
igneous
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
Achroite
The rare colorless variety of tourmaline, named from the Greek for 'without color' and prized by collectors.
gemstone
Cat's Eye Opal
An opal cut to show chatoyancy, a sharp moving band of light like a cat's eye, usually in honey, green or yellow common opal.
gemstone
Onyx
A banded variety of chalcedony quartz, classically black or black-and-white, long favored for cameos and beads.
gemstone
Iolite
The gem variety of cordierite, famous for strong pleochroism that shifts from violet-blue to near-colorless.
gemstone
Emerald Crystal
The natural crystalline form of emerald, the prized green chromium-and-vanadium variety of beryl and the May birthstone.
crystal
Amethyst
The purple variety of quartz, colored by iron and natural irradiation, prized as the classic violet birthstone of February.
crystal
White Topaz
A colorless, transparent variety of topaz valued as an affordable, hard, brilliant alternative to diamond in jewelry.
gemstone
Lodestone
A naturally magnetized variety of magnetite that attracts iron, historically used as the first magnetic compass.
mineral
Banded Agate
The classic agate defined by concentric or parallel bands of chalcedony in varied colors, the archetype of all agate varieties.
gemstone
Prasiolite
A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.
gemstone
Hessonite Garnet
The cinnamon-to-honey colored variety of grossular garnet, prized in jewelry and revered as the gem 'gomed' in Vedic astrology.
gemstone
Goshenite
The colorless variety of beryl, named after Goshen, Massachusetts, prized for its purity, clarity, and durability.
gemstone
Websterite
A variety of pyroxenite composed of both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene with little olivine, found in layered intrusions and the mantle.
igneous