Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.

Basalt

A fine-grained, dark volcanic rock that erupts as fluid lava and forms most of the ocean floor and many lava plateaus.

A dark, highly vesicular volcanic rock full of gas bubbles, denser than pumice, common as red or black lava rock.

A fine-grained, intermediate volcanic rock common at subduction-zone volcanoes, between basalt and rhyolite in composition.

A rare, ancient ultramafic volcanic rock formed from extremely hot magma, famous for its spinifex texture.

A mafic volcanic rock speckled with pale spherical 'varioles,' typically formed in rapidly chilled basaltic pillow lavas.

A rare ultrapotassic lamproite of leucite, phlogopite and diopside, named for and typified by Wyoming's Leucite Hills.

A fine-grained, silica-rich volcanic rock that is the extrusive equivalent of granite, often pale, banded, or flow-textured.

A rare high-magnesium andesite formed in young subduction zones, named for Japan's Bonin Islands.

A silica-poor volcanic rock of alkali feldspar and feldspathoids that rings when struck, hence 'clinkstone.'

A soft, talc-rich metamorphic rock with a soapy feel, easily carved and highly heat-resistant for cookware and sculpture.

A fine-grained volcanic rock dominated by alkali feldspar, the extrusive equivalent of syenite.

A fine-grained volcanic rock intermediate between andesite and rhyolite, common at explosive stratovolcanoes.

The fine-grained volcanic equivalent of monzonite, an intermediate lava with nearly equal feldspars and little free quartz.

A glassy, jet-black volcanic rock formed when lava cools too fast to crystallize, prized for razor-sharp conchoidal edges.