Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Garnet Schist
A shiny, foliated schist studded with red garnet crystals that grew during medium-grade regional metamorphism.
metamorphic
Garden Quartz
Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.
crystal
Gondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Emerald in Matrix
Natural emerald crystals still embedded in their host rock, prized as mineral specimens that show how the gem grew in place.
gemstone
Spiderweb Jasper
A jasper crossed by fine dark veins forming a spiderweb-like network, often a brecciated stone cemented by darker matrix.
mineral
Matrix Opal
Opal in which precious play-of-color is intimately dispersed through the pores of its host rock rather than forming a solid seam.
gemstone
Khondalite
A high-grade metamorphic gneiss of garnet, sillimanite, quartz, and graphite, derived from ancient aluminous sediments.
metamorphic
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Tourmalinated Quartz
Clear or milky quartz threaded with black needles of tourmaline (schorl), combining quartz clarity with dramatic dark inclusions.
crystal
Kyanite Schist
A mica schist containing bladed blue kyanite crystals, a marker of medium- to high-grade metamorphism of aluminous rocks.
metamorphic
Aquamarine Matrix
Aquamarine crystals still attached to their natural host rock, prized as mineral specimens showing beryl in its original pocket setting.
mineral
Sonoran Sunset Jasper
A vivid copper-bearing Mexican stone of red cuprite and green chrysocolla that evokes a desert sunset.
mineral
Needle Tourmaline
Fine acicular (needle-like) tourmaline crystals, often black schorl, frequently seen as slender inclusions within clear quartz.
mineral
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Red Garnet
The classic deep-red garnet — usually almandine or pyrope — long worn as the fiery 'carbuncle' gem and January's birthstone.
gemstone
Grape Garnet
A trademarked deep purple-red rhodolite garnet from India, named for its rich grape-like color from the pyrope-almandine series.
gemstone
Star Garnet
A rare almandine garnet that displays a four- or six-rayed star (asterism) from oriented rutile inclusions; the state gem of Idaho.
gemstone
Green Garnet
An umbrella term for green members of the garnet group, including prized tsavorite, demantoid, and rare chrome-rich uvarovite.
gemstone
Pink Garnet
A trade name for pink garnets, mainly rhodolite, a rose-to-purplish pyrope-almandine blend prized for its bright clean color.
gemstone
Mint Garnet
A delicate pastel-green grossular garnet, lighter than tsavorite, most famously from the Merelani Hills of Tanzania.
gemstone
Mali Garnet
A rare grossular-andradite blend ('grandite') from Mali, prized for its high brilliance and golden-green to yellow color.
gemstone
Honey Garnet
A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.
gemstone
Lotus Garnet
A delicate pinkish-purple to peach garnet from Tanzania, a pyrope-spessartine blend named for the soft colors of a lotus flower.
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