Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Almandine Garnet
The most common garnet, an iron aluminum silicate in deep red to brownish-red hues, used as a gem and an industrial abrasive.
gemstone
Garnet Schist
A shiny, foliated schist studded with red garnet crystals that grew during medium-grade regional metamorphism.
metamorphic
Schist
A medium-grade metamorphic rock rich in aligned platy minerals that gives it a shiny, easily splitting, foliated texture.
metamorphic
Pelitic Schist
A schist derived from clay-rich sediments, rich in mica and often bearing index minerals like garnet, staurolite, or kyanite.
metamorphic
Kyanite Schist
A mica schist containing bladed blue kyanite crystals, a marker of medium- to high-grade metamorphism of aluminous rocks.
metamorphic
Staurolite Schist
A mica schist studded with brown staurolite porphyroblasts, sometimes forming the cross-shaped twins known as fairy stones.
metamorphic
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Staurolite-mica Schist
A mica schist studded with red-brown staurolite porphyroblasts, including the famous cross-shaped twins called fairy stones.
metamorphic
Montana Garnet
Montana Garnet is red almandine recovered from Montana placer gravels, often alongside the state's famous sapphires.
gemstone
Ceylon Garnet
Ceylon Garnet is a historic trade name for fine red almandine (and hessonite) garnet from the gem gravels of Sri Lanka.
gemstone
Syrian Garnet
Syrian Garnet is an old trade name for fine deep-red almandine, historically tied to the Syriam region and prized as 'precious garnet.'
gemstone
Star Garnet
A rare almandine garnet that displays a four- or six-rayed star (asterism) from oriented rutile inclusions; the state gem of Idaho.
gemstone
Mozambique Garnet
An abundant, brightly colored pyrope-almandine garnet from East Africa, valued for its clean, raspberry-to-red gems at accessible prices.
gemstone
Dragon Garnet
A trade name for deep wine-red garnet, typically a rich pyrope-almandine stone marketed for its dramatic, fiery color.
gemstone
Adirondack Garnet
Adirondack Garnet is large, dark-red almandine from New York's Gore Mountain, the world's most famous industrial garnet abrasive source.
mineral
Pyralspite Garnet
Pyralspite is the aluminum garnet series uniting pyrope, almandine, and spessartine, covering most red, orange, and purple gem garnets.
mineral
Rhodolite Garnet
A purplish-red to raspberry garnet that is a natural blend of pyrope and almandine, prized for its bright rose-violet color.
gemstone
Red Garnet
The classic deep-red garnet — usually almandine or pyrope — long worn as the fiery 'carbuncle' gem and January's birthstone.
gemstone
Pink Garnet
A trade name for pink garnets, mainly rhodolite, a rose-to-purplish pyrope-almandine blend prized for its bright clean color.
gemstone
Strawberry Garnet
A bright strawberry-red garnet, typically an almandine-pyrope blend prized for its juicy, lively red color in jewelry.
gemstone
Raspberry Garnet
A vivid pinkish-red rhodolite garnet named for its raspberry color, a bright pyrope-almandine blend popular in jewelry.
gemstone
Grape Garnet
A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.
gemstone
Idaho Star Garnet
Idaho's official state gem: a dark almandine garnet showing a four- or rare six-rayed star from oriented rutile inclusions.
gemstone
Amphibolite
A dark, dense metamorphic rock dominated by hornblende and plagioclase, formed by medium- to high-grade metamorphism of basalt.
metamorphic