Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Diamond
The hardest known natural material, a crystalline form of pure carbon prized as the ultimate gemstone for its brilliance and fire.
gemstone
Herkimer Diamond
Exceptionally clear, naturally double-terminated quartz crystals from Herkimer County, New York, prized for their diamond-like brilliance.
crystal
Platinum
A dense, durable, silvery-white precious metal that resists corrosion, used in fine jewelry and catalytic converters.
mineral
Gold
A dense, soft, intensely yellow native metal valued for millennia in coinage, jewelry, and electronics.
mineral
Kimberlite
A rare ultramafic volcanic rock that erupts from deep in the mantle and is the primary natural source of diamonds.
igneous
Zircon
A natural zirconium silicate gem with high brilliance and fire, often confused with the synthetic imitation cubic zirconia.
gemstone
Copper
A soft, reddish native metal with excellent conductivity, mined for wiring, plumbing, and alloys like bronze and brass.
mineral
Prehnite
A translucent yellow-green silicate famous for its botryoidal 'grape' clusters, often hosting needle-like sprays of black epidote.
mineral
Silver
A soft, lustrous white native metal with the highest electrical conductivity, used in jewelry, coinage, and industry.
mineral
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet
A synthetic garnet-structured oxide (YAG) used as a diamond simulant and laser crystal, with no natural counterpart.
gemstone
Eye Agate
A chalcedony agate marked by round, concentric ring patterns that resemble eyes when cut and polished.
gemstone
White Topaz
A colorless, transparent variety of topaz valued as an affordable, hard, brilliant alternative to diamond in jewelry.
gemstone
Bird's Eye Jasper
A microcrystalline quartz jasper marked by small concentric ring or eye patterns that resemble the eyes of birds.
mineral
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Phonolite
A silica-poor volcanic rock of alkali feldspar and feldspathoids that rings when struck, hence 'clinkstone.'
igneous
Phosphorite
Phosphate-rich sedimentary rock, the world's main source of phosphorus for fertilizers, formed in nutrient-rich marine settings.
sedimentary
Micrite
A very fine-grained limestone made of microcrystalline calcite mud, dense and smooth, deposited in calm carbonate settings.
sedimentary
Niccolite
A pale copper-red nickel arsenide, historically called kupfernickel, that is an ore of nickel and gives the metal its name.
mineral
Cassiterite
Tin oxide and the principal ore of tin, a dense, hard mineral mined since the Bronze Age for tin metal.
mineral
Povondraite
A rare ferric-iron-dominant tourmaline that forms in oxidized evaporite settings, appearing as black to red-brown prismatic crystals.
mineral
Leopard Skin Jasper
A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Cipollino Marble
A green-and-white banded metamorphic marble whose wavy mica layers resemble the rings of a sliced onion.
metamorphic
Black Jasper
A dense, opaque black variety of microcrystalline quartz historically used as a touchstone for testing precious metals.
mineral
Blue Sapphire
The blue gem variety of corundum, prized for its rich color, extreme hardness, and brilliance second only to diamond.
gemstone