Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Garden Quartz
Clear quartz filled with mineral inclusions that look like underwater gardens, mossy landscapes, or floating scenery.
crystal
Moss Agate
A translucent chalcedony filled with green or brown dendritic mineral inclusions that resemble moss, foliage, or landscapes.
gemstone
Hessonite Garnet
The cinnamon-to-honey colored variety of grossular garnet, prized in jewelry and revered as the gem 'gomed' in Vedic astrology.
gemstone
Cinnamon Stone
The warm cinnamon-to-honey-brown variety of grossular garnet, also known as hessonite, with a characteristic swirly internal texture.
gemstone
Orange Garnet
A trade term for orange garnets, mainly manganese-rich spessartine and the brownish hessonite variety of grossular.
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
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
Ceylon Garnet
Ceylon Garnet is a historic trade name for fine red almandine (and hessonite) garnet from the gem gravels of Sri Lanka.
gemstone
Garnet
A group of silicate gemstones best known for deep red but spanning nearly every color, including green tsavorite and orange spessartine.
gemstone
Staurolite-mica Schist
A mica schist studded with red-brown staurolite porphyroblasts, including the famous cross-shaped twins called fairy stones.
metamorphic
Staurolite Schist
A mica schist studded with brown staurolite porphyroblasts, sometimes forming the cross-shaped twins known as fairy stones.
metamorphic
Demantoid Garnet
A rare green andradite garnet famed for fire exceeding diamond and distinctive horsetail inclusions in Russian stones.
gemstone
White Agate
A white to grayish banded chalcedony, the natural base color of much agate and the substrate for many dyed stones.
gemstone
Howlite
A white, porous borate mineral webbed with gray-black veins, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.
mineralMintabie Opal
Precious opal from the Mintabie field in South Australia, known for hard, bright crystal opal and some dark-bodied stones.
gemstone
Indian Agate
An affordable multicolored banded and mossy chalcedony from India, common in tumbled stones, beads, and meditation pieces.
gemstone
Magnesite
A magnesium carbonate mineral, usually chalky white with grey veining, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.
mineral
Orange Calcite
A soft, glowing orange variety of calcite colored by iron oxides, popular as tumbled stones and known for fizzing in acid.
mineral
Hydrogrossular Garnet
A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.
gemstone
Dragon Garnet
A trade name for deep wine-red garnet, typically a rich pyrope-almandine stone marketed for its dramatic, fiery color.
gemstoneParticolored Tourmaline
A tourmaline displaying two or more distinct colors in a single crystal, prized for natural color zoning like watermelon and bicolor stones.
gemstone