Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Blue Apatite
A blue calcium phosphate mineral with vivid color and middling hardness, the same mineral family that forms bones and teeth.
mineral
Blue Jasper
An opaque blue variety of chalcedony jasper, less common than red or green forms, colored by mineral inclusions.
mineral
Blue Calcite
A soft, soothing powder-blue variety of calcite, a common calcium carbonate mineral often sold as gentle tumbled stones.
mineral
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystalOwyhee Blue Jasper
A soft blue-gray jasper from the Owyhee region of Oregon and Idaho, prized for its rare, calming blue tones among earthy jaspers.
gemstone
Rock Salt
An evaporite rock of the mineral halite (sodium chloride), the source of common salt, with a distinctive salty taste.
sedimentaryBlue Line Jasper
A pale jasper crossed by distinctive blue-gray veins or lines, valued by lapidaries for its calm color contrast.
gemstone
Calc-Silicate Rock
A metamorphic rock of calcium-rich silicate minerals formed from impure limestone or dolomite altered by heat and fluids.
metamorphic
Lithic Sandstone
A sandstone in which the dominant grains are fragments of pre-existing rocks rather than single minerals, signaling rapid erosion nearby.
sedimentaryGrey Moonstone
A smoky gray feldspar moonstone, often called new moon stone, showing a silvery-blue adularescent sheen over a translucent gray body.
gemstone
Kimberlite
A rare ultramafic volcanic rock that erupts from deep in the mantle and is the primary natural source of diamonds.
igneous
Halite
The natural mineral form of table salt, a soft, water-soluble evaporite that forms perfect cubic crystals and tastes salty.
mineral
Glaucophane Schist
A blue, high-pressure metamorphic schist rich in glaucophane, the classic rock of subduction zones, also known as blueschist.
metamorphic
Blueschist
A blue-hued, high-pressure metamorphic schist colored by the amphibole glaucophane, formed in cold, deep subduction zones.
metamorphic
Anhydrite
A water-free calcium sulfate mineral closely related to gypsum, forming in evaporite deposits and swelling into gypsum when it absorbs water.
mineral
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Dolomite
A calcium-magnesium carbonate mineral and rock similar to limestone but harder and only weakly reactive to acid.
mineral
Lapis Lazuli
An intensely blue metamorphic rock of lazurite flecked with golden pyrite, prized for millennia as a gemstone and ultramarine pigment.
metamorphic
Gypsum
A very soft sulfate mineral defining Mohs 2, occurring as selenite, satin spar, alabaster, and desert rose, used to make plaster.
mineral
Coquina
A soft, porous limestone made of loosely cemented shell and coral fragments, used as a coastal building stone.
sedimentary
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Coal
A combustible black sedimentary rock formed from ancient plant matter and burned for centuries as a primary fossil fuel.
sedimentary
Breccia
A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.
sedimentary
Cataclasite
A cohesive fault rock formed by brittle crushing and grinding of rock along a fault zone, with angular fragments in a fine matrix.
metamorphic