Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Basalt
A fine-grained, dark volcanic rock that erupts as fluid lava and forms most of the ocean floor and many lava plateaus.
igneous
Tholeiitic Basalt
The most abundant basalt type on Earth, a silica-saturated subalkaline lava that forms ocean crust and flood basalts.
igneous
Porphyritic Obsidian
Natural volcanic glass speckled with embedded mineral crystals (phenocrysts) such as feldspar or cristobalite that grew before the lava chilled.
igneous
Metabasalt
Basalt that has been metamorphosed, developing new minerals like chlorite, actinolite, and epidote that give it a greenish color.
metamorphic
Variolite
A mafic volcanic rock speckled with pale spherical 'varioles,' typically formed in rapidly chilled basaltic pillow lavas.
igneous
Limburgite
A dark, glass-rich volcanic rock of olivine and augite phenocrysts set in a feldspar-free glassy groundmass, named from the Kaiserstuhl region.
igneous
Tachylite
An opaque, iron-rich basaltic volcanic glass formed by the rapid chilling of basalt lava, darker and denser than rhyolitic obsidian.
igneous
Gabbro
A coarse-grained, dark mafic intrusive rock that is the plutonic equivalent of basalt, rich in plagioclase and pyroxene.
igneous
Sideromelane
A transparent, pale brown basaltic volcanic glass formed when basalt lava is quenched extremely fast, often underwater.
igneous
Palagonite
A yellow-brown alteration material formed when basaltic volcanic glass reacts with water, common in hydrovolcanic tuffs and pillow lavas.
igneous
Diabase
A tough, dark, medium-grained igneous rock with the composition of basalt, common in dikes and sills.
igneous
Greenstone
A general field term for green, low-grade metamorphosed basaltic rocks colored by chlorite, epidote, and actinolite.
metamorphic
Scoria
A dark, highly vesicular volcanic rock full of gas bubbles, denser than pumice, common as red or black lava rock.
igneous
Andesite
A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.
igneousTintenbar Opal
Rare precious opal from Tintenbar in northern New South Wales, Australia, occurring in volcanic basalt rather than sedimentary rock.
gemstone
Pele's Tears
Small, smooth, teardrop-shaped beads of basaltic volcanic glass formed from airborne lava droplets, often paired with Pele's hair.
igneous
Pele's Hair
Fine, golden, hair-like strands of basaltic volcanic glass spun from fluid lava droplets during eruptions, named for the Hawaiian volcano goddess.
igneous
Peridot
The gem-quality green variety of olivine, peridot is colored by iron and is one of the few gems found in only one color.
gemstone
Harzburgite
A depleted mantle peridotite of olivine and orthopyroxene, the refractory residue left after basaltic melt is extracted from the mantle.
igneous
Honduran Opal
Precious opal from Honduras occurring in a dark volcanic matrix, where bright flecks of color flash against a natural black basalt background.
gemstone
Lamproite
A rare ultrapotassic, magnesium-rich volcanic rock from deep in the mantle, famous as the diamond host at Argyle in Australia.
igneous
Troctolite
A mafic plutonic rock of plagioclase and olivine whose mottled appearance earned it the nickname 'troutstone'.
igneous
Dunite
An ultramafic intrusive rock made almost entirely of olivine, representing mantle material.
igneousWehrite
An ultramafic rock of olivine and clinopyroxene, a peridotite variety common as cumulate layers in mafic intrusions.
igneous