Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Granite
A coarse-grained, speckled intrusive rock built from quartz, feldspar, and mica, forming the bedrock of the continents.
igneous
Graphic Granite
A pegmatitic granite in which quartz and feldspar intergrow to resemble ancient runic or Hebrew script.
igneous
Graphic Feldspar
A pegmatite rock of feldspar intergrown with wedge-shaped quartz that resembles ancient runic or Hebrew writing.
igneous
Pegmatite
An exceptionally coarse-grained igneous rock, often granitic, famous for hosting large crystals and many gemstones.
igneous
Potassium Feldspar
The potassium-rich feldspar group - orthoclase, microcline, and sanidine - a major rock-forming mineral often recognized by its salmon-pink color.
mineral
Unakite
An altered granite mottled pink and green from feldspar and epidote, popular as a tough, colorful ornamental rock.
metamorphicUnakite Jasper
An altered granite of pink feldspar, green epidote and quartz, mottled pink-and-green and popular as a tumbled and carving stone.
metamorphic
Arkose
A coarse, feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that records rapid erosion of granitic source rock under arid conditions.
sedimentary
Larvikite
A Norwegian intrusive rock whose feldspar crystals flash silvery-blue, widely used as blue pearl granite countertops.
igneous
Rubicline
An extremely rare rubidium-dominant alkali feldspar, the rubidium analogue of microcline, found in rare-element granitic pegmatites.
mineralLuxullianite
A distinctive tourmaline-rich granite from Cornwall, prized as an ornamental stone for its pink feldspar set with radiating black tourmaline.
igneous
Albitite
A pale rock made almost entirely of the sodium feldspar albite, formed by sodic magmatism or sodium metasomatism.
igneous
Feldspathic Sandstone
A feldspar-rich sandstone, often pink, that points to granitic source rocks eroded quickly in dry or cold climates.
sedimentary
Granodiorite
A common coarse-grained intrusive rock like granite but richer in plagioclase than potassium feldspar.
igneous
Greywacke
A hard, dark, poorly sorted sandstone with a muddy matrix, typically deposited by underwater turbidity currents.
sedimentary
Cleavelandite
A striking platy, blade-like variety of albite feldspar that grows in fanned aggregates of thin white crystals within granite pegmatites.
mineral
Feldspar
The most abundant mineral group in Earth's crust, feldspars are aluminosilicates that form much of granite and many igneous rocks.
mineralPink Lady Obsidian
Obsidian showing a pink-to-rose sheen or hue; natural examples get color from interference effects, while uniform pink material is often manufactured glass.
igneous
Orthoclase
A common rock-forming potassium feldspar, the Mohs hardness reference at 6, found in granites and used in ceramics and glassmaking.
mineral
Rossmanite
A rare lithium-aluminum tourmaline with a vacant X site, typically pale pink to colorless and found in lithium pegmatites.
mineralPeach Moonstone
A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.
gemstone
Hyalophane
A barium-bearing potassium feldspar intermediate between orthoclase and celsian, found in barium-rich metamorphic and ore deposits.
mineral
Thulite
A pink, manganese-rich variety of zoisite used as an ornamental gemstone, often mottled with white quartz and grey matrix.
gemstone
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous