Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Green Aventurine
A green quartz speckled with shimmering fuchsite mica that produces a glittering aventurescence, popular as an affordable ornamental stone.
mineralPrase
An old name for a dull leek-green variety of quartz or chalcedony colored by green mineral inclusions, historically called mother of emerald.
crystal
Aventurine
A translucent quartz speckled with glittery mineral inclusions that produce a shimmering aventurescence, most often green.
crystal
Aventurine Feldspar
A feldspar, better known as sunstone, that sparkles with metallic glints from tiny mineral platelets, an effect called aventurescence.
gemstone
Green Quartz
A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.
crystal
Green Jasper
An opaque green variety of chalcedony quartz colored by iron and chlorite-group inclusions, prized as a durable carving and cabochon stone.
mineral
Green Opal
A common opal colored green by nickel or chromium impurities, usually opaque and cut into cabochons and beads.
gemstone
Blue Quartz
A naturally blue quartz colored by tiny mineral inclusions such as dumortierite or scattered rutile and tourmaline fibers.
crystal
Lemon Quartz
A vivid greenish-yellow quartz, usually heat-treated or irradiated, prized for its clean clarity and bright lemon color.
crystalQuartz Arenite
A clean, mature sandstone made almost entirely of quartz grains, representing extreme weathering, sorting, and recycling of sediment.
sedimentary
Milky Quartz
The most common variety of quartz, milky white from microscopic fluid and gas inclusions, forming massive veins worldwide.
crystal
Scepter Quartz
Quartz with a wider crystal 'cap' that grew over a narrower stem, forming a natural scepter or mushroom shape.
crystal
Spirit Quartz
A South African quartz whose central crystal is coated in tiny druzy points, also called cactus or fairy quartz.
crystal
Smoky Quartz
The smoky brown to gray variety of quartz, colored by natural irradiation, valued as both a gemstone and crystal specimen.
crystal
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Morion Quartz
The darkest, near-opaque black variety of smoky quartz, colored by natural radiation acting on trace aluminum.
crystal
Tangerine Quartz
Clear quartz coated with orange-red hematite, giving points a vivid tangerine color, mainly from Brazil.
crystal
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Quartz Schist
A foliated metamorphic rock dominated by quartz with enough mica to give it a schistose, splitting fabric.
metamorphic
Snow Quartz
An opaque, snow-white variety of quartz whose milky color comes from countless tiny gas and fluid inclusions.
crystal
Enhydro Quartz
Quartz containing a sealed pocket of ancient water, often with a mobile air bubble that moves when the crystal is tilted.
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