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.
igneousAsphalt Rock
A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.
sedimentary
Gabbro
A coarse-grained, dark mafic intrusive rock that is the plutonic equivalent of basalt, rich in plagioclase and pyroxene.
igneous
Variolite
A mafic volcanic rock speckled with pale spherical 'varioles,' typically formed in rapidly chilled basaltic pillow lavas.
igneous
Scoria
A dark, highly vesicular volcanic rock full of gas bubbles, denser than pumice, common as red or black lava rock.
igneous
Sideromelane
A transparent, pale brown basaltic volcanic glass formed when basalt lava is quenched extremely fast, often underwater.
igneous
Greenstone
A general field term for green, low-grade metamorphosed basaltic rocks colored by chlorite, epidote, and actinolite.
metamorphic
Metabasalt
Basalt that has been metamorphosed, developing new minerals like chlorite, actinolite, and epidote that give it a greenish color.
metamorphic
Shonkinite
A dark, mafic potassic alkaline rock rich in augite with alkali feldspar and often nepheline, classically forming the base of layered sills.
igneous
Tachylite
An opaque, iron-rich basaltic volcanic glass formed by the rapid chilling of basalt lava, darker and denser than rhyolitic obsidian.
igneous
Diabase
A tough, dark, medium-grained igneous rock with the composition of basalt, common in dikes and sills.
igneous
Melteigite
A dark, pyroxene-dominated plutonic rock at the mafic end of the ijolite series, made mainly of aegirine-augite with subordinate nepheline.
igneous
Palagonite
A yellow-brown alteration material formed when basaltic volcanic glass reacts with water, common in hydrovolcanic tuffs and 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
Granulite
A high-grade metamorphic rock formed in the deep, hot crust, marked by anhydrous minerals like pyroxene and garnet.
metamorphic
Lamprophyre
A dark, mineral-rich dike rock with abundant mica or amphibole phenocrysts set in a fine groundmass, often associated with gold and diamonds.
igneous
Troctolite
A mafic plutonic rock of plagioclase and olivine whose mottled appearance earned it the nickname 'troutstone'.
igneous
Epidosite
A hard, pistachio-green rock composed mainly of epidote and quartz, formed by hydrothermal alteration of mafic rocks.
metamorphicTintenbar Opal
Rare precious opal from Tintenbar in northern New South Wales, Australia, occurring in volcanic basalt rather than sedimentary rock.
gemstone
Hornblende Schist
A dark, foliated schist rich in needle-like hornblende crystals, formed by metamorphism of mafic igneous rocks.
metamorphic
Amphibolite
A dark, dense metamorphic rock dominated by hornblende and plagioclase, formed by medium- to high-grade metamorphism of basalt.
metamorphic
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
Andesite
A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.
igneous
Jacupirangite
A rare dark ultramafic alkaline igneous rock built mostly of titanaugite and magnetite, named for Jacupiranga in Brazil.
igneous