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
Greenschist
A green, foliated low-grade metamorphic rock colored by chlorite, actinolite, and epidote, marking the greenschist metamorphic facies.
metamorphic
Snow Quartz
An opaque, snow-white variety of quartz whose milky color comes from countless tiny gas and fluid inclusions.
crystal
Zircon
A natural zirconium silicate gem with high brilliance and fire, often confused with the synthetic imitation cubic zirconia.
gemstone
Metaquartzite
A hard, tough metamorphic rock of fused quartz grains, formed by recrystallizing quartz sandstone under heat and pressure.
metamorphic
Jaspillite
A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.
metamorphic
Yttrium Aluminum Garnet
A synthetic garnet-structured oxide (YAG) used as a diamond simulant and laser crystal, with no natural counterpart.
gemstone
Greenstone
A general field term for green, low-grade metamorphosed basaltic rocks colored by chlorite, epidote, and actinolite.
metamorphicGondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Itabirite
A metamorphosed banded iron formation of alternating quartz and iron-oxide layers, mined as a major iron ore.
metamorphic
Kimberlite
A rare ultramafic volcanic rock that erupts from deep in the mantle and is the primary natural source of diamonds.
igneous
Banded Iron Formation
Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.
sedimentary
Metasandstone
Sandstone altered by metamorphism, with partly recrystallized quartz grains, transitional between true sandstone and quartzite.
metamorphic
Demantoid Garnet
A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.
gemstone
Blue Sapphire
The blue gem variety of corundum, prized for its rich color, extreme hardness, and brilliance second only to diamond.
gemstone
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
Sphalerite
Zinc sulfide and the chief ore of zinc, prized when transparent for its extreme fire that exceeds diamond.
mineral
White Beryl
The colorless to milky-white variety of beryl, known mineralogically as goshenite and once used to imitate diamond and other gems.
gemstone
Ruby
The red, chromium-colored variety of corundum, prized as one of the most valuable colored gemstones and second only to diamond in hardness.
gemstone
Titanite
A calcium titanium silicate, gem-known as sphene, famous for fiery dispersion that exceeds diamond and rich green-to-yellow colors.
gemstoneKnorringite
A chromium-rich magnesium garnet of the pyrope series that crystallizes in the deep mantle and is a valuable diamond indicator mineral.
mineral