Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Smoky Quartz
The smoky brown to gray variety of quartz, colored by natural irradiation, valued as both a gemstone and crystal specimen.
crystal
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Cactus Quartz
A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in a cactus-like crust of tiny secondary points, also called spirit quartz.
crystal
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Faden Quartz
Tabular quartz crossed by a milky white thread-like line marking where the crystal repeatedly cracked and re-healed.
crystal
Clear Quartz
The pure, colorless form of crystalline quartz, valued for its clarity, abundance, and piezoelectric properties used in electronics.
crystal
Garden Quartz
Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.
crystalLemurian Seed Quartz
Clear quartz crystals marked by distinctive horizontal ladder-like striations, popularized from Brazil as a metaphysical stone.
crystal
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstonePolyhedroid Agate
A rare agate that forms naturally with flat polygonal faces and angular geometric shapes rather than the usual rounded nodule.
gemstone
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Goshenite Crystal
The pure colorless variety of beryl, valued as crystal specimens and as a brilliant alternative to clearer gemstones.
crystal
Herkimer Diamond
Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.
crystal
Flower Jasper
A jasper whose radiating mineral clusters form flower-like rosettes scattered across an earthy background.
mineralFeather Jasper
A jasper marked with soft feather- or plume-like mineral inclusions that drift through a pale silica body.
mineral
Granodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneous
Rhodonite
A rose-pink manganese silicate marbled with black veins, prized as a tough ornamental and occasionally faceted gemstone.
mineral
Hawk's Eye
The blue-grey relative of tiger's eye, a chatoyant quartz showing a shifting band of light like a bird of prey's eye.
gemstone
Danburite
A glassy calcium borosilicate forming wedge-tipped prismatic crystals, usually colorless to pale yellow or pink, sometimes faceted as a gem.
crystal
Black Agate
A deep black variety of banded chalcedony, often closely related to or treated like onyx, used for jewelry and carvings.
gemstone
Zebra Jasper
A black-and-white striped chalcedony-quartz rock whose bold zebra-like banding makes it a popular ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentaryDendritic Jasper
A pale jasper threaded with black, fern-like mineral dendrites that mimic plants, trees, and frost despite being inorganic.
mineralSnakeskin Jasper
An opaque patterned jasper named for its scaly, snakeskin-like surface markings of interlocking tan and brown cells.
mineralFlame Jasper
A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.
mineral