Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Aquamarine Matrix

Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.

Blue-colored volcanic glass; genuine natural blue obsidian is very rare, while much blue obsidian on the market is manufactured glass.

An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.

A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.

A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.

A deep blue copper carbonate mineral that forms in oxidized copper deposits, often alongside green malachite.

A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.

Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.

A rare deep-blue copper silicate mineral, often fibrous or massive, named for the Shattuck Mine in Arizona and prized by collectors.

A striking lead chromate mineral prized for its brilliant orange-red prismatic crystals, with the finest specimens from Tasmania.

A hydrous zinc silicate, often sky-blue, that is an ore of zinc and a collectible mineral forming botryoidal crusts and crystals.

Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.