Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Chevron Amethyst

A naturally banded quartz combining purple amethyst and white quartz in striking V-shaped chevron or zigzag patterns.

Purple-colored volcanic glass; genuine natural purple obsidian is rare, with much purple obsidian being manufactured colored glass.

A prized Namibian quartz combining amethyst, smoky, and clear quartz in single crystals, often with phantoms and enhydros.

A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.

Quartz with a wider crystal 'cap' that grew over a narrower stem, forming a natural scepter or mushroom shape.

A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in tiny druzy points, also called cactus or fairy quartz.

A hollow rock nodule whose interior cavity is lined with inward-pointing crystals such as quartz, amethyst, or calcite.

A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.

Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.

A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.

Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.

Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.

Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.