Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Malaia Garnet
A pyrope-spessartine garnet in warm peach, salmon, and pinkish-orange tones, originally rejected by dealers and named 'malaia,' Swahili for outcast.
gemstone
Sea Sediment Jasper
A colorful trade-name material, often dyed and reconstituted, sold as jasper; vivid blues and greens are typically artificially enhanced.
mineral
Carbonatite
A rare igneous rock made mostly of carbonate minerals, source of the world's most important rare-earth-element and niobium deposits.
igneous
Peach Garnet
A soft peach to pinkish-orange garnet, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for its warm, delicate color.
gemstone
Champagne Garnet
A soft brownish-golden garnet named for its champagne color, usually a malaia-type pyrope-spessartine blend prized for warm, neutral tones.
gemstone
Mahenge Garnet
Mahenge Garnet is a pyrope-spessartine gem from Tanzania's Mahenge region, prized for vivid pink, purple, and color-change tones.
gemstone
Aquamarine
The serene blue-to-sea-green variety of beryl, aquamarine is a durable gemstone colored by trace iron and birthstone for March.
gemstone
Rock Salt
An evaporite rock of the mineral halite (sodium chloride), the source of common salt, with a distinctive salty taste.
sedimentary
Orange Garnet
A trade term for orange garnets, mainly manganese-rich spessartine and the brownish hessonite variety of grossular.
gemstone
Pink Garnet
A trade name for pink garnets, mainly rhodolite, a rose-to-purplish pyrope-almandine blend prized for its bright clean color.
gemstone
Umbalite Garnet
A delicate pink to lavender garnet from Tanzania's Umba Valley, a pyrope-spessartine blend often marketed as a soft, light-toned rhodolite.
gemstone
Ocean Jasper
A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.
sedimentary
Crinoidal Limestone
A fossiliferous limestone built largely from the disc-shaped skeletal plates of crinoids, marine animals known as sea lilies.
sedimentary
Halite
The natural mineral form of table salt, a soft, water-soluble evaporite that forms perfect cubic crystals and tastes salty.
mineral
Coal
A combustible black sedimentary rock formed from ancient plant matter and burned for centuries as a primary fossil fuel.
sedimentary
Belomorite
A regional Russian name for a moonstone-like plagioclase from the White Sea coast, prized for its bluish, slightly iridescent schiller.
gemstone
Aquamarine Crystal
The blue iron-bearing variety of beryl, forming clear hexagonal crystals prized both as specimens and as a March birthstone gem.
crystal
Frosted Obsidian
Natural obsidian with a frosted, matte surface produced by weathering, abrasion, or etching rather than a separate variety of glass.
igneous
Pearl
An organic gem formed inside mollusks from layered nacre, prized for its iridescent luster and classic elegance.
gemstone
Opalite
A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.
crystal
Crystal Opal
Precious opal with a transparent or translucent body, letting play-of-color glow with exceptional depth and clarity.
gemstone
Proustite
A scarlet-red silver arsenic sulfide known as light ruby silver, a striking but light-sensitive ore that darkens on exposure.
mineral
Gold
A dense, soft, intensely yellow native metal valued for millennia in coinage, jewelry, and electronics.
mineral
Silver
A soft, lustrous white native metal with the highest electrical conductivity, used in jewelry, coinage, and industry.
mineral