Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Thulite
A pink, manganese-rich variety of zoisite used as an ornamental gemstone, often mottled with white quartz and grey matrix.
gemstone
Rutile
Rutile is a major titanium ore and the famous golden needle inclusion that gives rutilated quartz its shimmering threads.
mineral
Brecciated Jasper
A jasper made of angular fragments naturally cemented back together, typically showing red and brown pieces in a quartz matrix.
sedimentary
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Banded Iron Formation
Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.
sedimentary
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphicCalico Obsidian
A mottled, multicolored obsidian blending black, brown, grey, and tan patches like a calico cat's patchwork coat.
igneous
Belomorite
A regional Russian name for a moonstone-like plagioclase from the White Sea coast, prized for its bluish, slightly iridescent schiller.
gemstone
Hornblende Schist
A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.
metamorphic
Bismuthinite
A soft lead-gray bismuth sulfide that is an important ore of bismuth, forming metallic needle-like and bladed crystals.
mineral
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineral
Sylvanite
A silver-white gold-silver telluride and important gold-silver ore, noted for crystals arranged in writing-like graphic patterns.
mineralParticolored Tourmaline
A tourmaline displaying two or more distinct colors in a single crystal, prized for natural color zoning like watermelon and bicolor stones.
gemstone
Pineapple Opal
A rare opal pseudomorph from White Cliffs, Australia, formed as opal replaced clustered crystals into a pineapple-like shape.
gemstone
Cleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineral
Trapiche Tourmaline
A rare tourmaline showing a fixed wheel-like pattern of color zones and arms radiating from the crystal's center.
gemstone