Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Galena

A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.

A silver-white gold-silver telluride and important gold-silver ore, noted for crystals arranged in writing-like graphic patterns.

A silver sulfide that is one of the most important silver ore minerals, forming dark metallic crystals and wires.

A soft lead-gray bismuth sulfide that is an important ore of bismuth, forming metallic needle-like and bladed crystals.

A black metallic silver antimony sulfide, historically a notable silver ore known as brittle silver ore.

Stibnite is the chief ore of antimony, famous for its dramatic clusters of bladed, silvery-gray metallic crystals.

A rare platinum arsenide and the most important platinum-bearing mineral, forming bright metallic cubic crystals.

The principal iron ore, a heavy iron oxide ranging from metallic silver-gray to earthy red, always leaving a tell-tale red-brown streak.

A silver-white cobalt arsenic sulfide that is a leading ore of cobalt, forming bright metallic cubic and pyritohedral crystals.