Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Jade
A tough, prized ornamental gem that is actually two distinct minerals, jadeite and nephrite, revered for millennia in many cultures.
gemstoneGreen Jade
The classic green ornamental gem, either jadeite or nephrite, valued for millennia for its toughness and rich color, especially imperial green.
gemstone
Transvaal Jade
A massive green-to-pink hydrogrossular garnet from South Africa used as a jade simulant, not a true jade.
gemstone
Nephrite
One of the two jade minerals, an amphibole prized for its extreme toughness and soft, waxy green hues used in carving for millennia.
gemstone
Jadeite
The rarer and more valuable of the two jade minerals, prized for its translucent emerald-green 'imperial' color and extreme toughness.
gemstone
Hydrogrossular Garnet
A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.
gemstone
Serpentine
A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.
mineralCarver Agate
A collectible Oregon plume and scenic agate with feathery red and gold inclusions suspended in translucent chalcedony.
gemstone
Aventurine
A translucent quartz speckled with glittery mineral inclusions that produce a shimmering aventurescence, most often green.
crystal
Chrysoprase
A translucent apple-green chalcedony colored by nickel, the most prized green variety of the quartz family.
gemstone
White Garnet
The rare colorless-to-white grossular garnet, also called leuco garnet, prized by collectors for its purity and unusual lack of color.
gemstone
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Serpentinite
A green, often mottled metamorphic rock formed by the hydration of mantle rocks, soft and waxy with a smooth, slippery feel.
metamorphic
Verdite
A rich green, fuchsite-rich metamorphic rock from southern Africa, prized as a carving and ornamental stone.
metamorphic
Charoite
A rare swirling lilac-to-violet silicate found only in Siberia, prized for its fibrous, chatoyant purple patterns.
mineral
Cave Creek Jasper
An opaque jasper from the Cave Creek area of Arizona, prized for earthy mottled and banded patterns in warm desert tones.
mineral
Amazonite
The blue-green gem variety of microcline feldspar, often mottled with white, prized as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineral
Mariposite
A green, gold-associated metamorphic rock made of chrome-rich mica and quartz, named for Mariposa County in California's gold country.
metamorphicJelly Garnet
Jelly Garnet is a translucent grossular garnet whose soft, glassy, gummy-looking body gives it a jelly-like appearance.
gemstone
Clear Obsidian
An unusually pure, transparent-to-translucent obsidian with few inclusions; truly water-clear specimens are rare in nature.
igneousCloudy Obsidian
Obsidian with a hazy, cloud-like translucency caused by uneven distribution of tiny bubbles or incipient crystallites in the glass.
igneousSmoky Obsidian
Translucent smoky-gray obsidian that transmits a hazy light, intermediate between clear and fully black volcanic glass.
igneous
Gray Obsidian
Obsidian in gray tones, often semi-translucent, colored by light scattering and minor inclusions within the volcanic glass.
igneousPipestone
A soft, fine-grained red metamorphosed claystone, sacred to many Native American peoples and carved into ceremonial pipes.
metamorphic