Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Tourmaline Schist
A foliated schist threaded with black tourmaline (schorl) needles, marking boron-rich metamorphic or metasomatic conditions.
metamorphic
Moonstone
A feldspar gem famous for adularescence, a floating blue-white glow that shimmers across the stone like moonlight.
gemstone
Peach Moonstone
A warm peach-to-apricot variety of moonstone feldspar showing a soft billowy sheen (adularescence) caused by internal light scattering.
gemstone
White Moonstone
The classic moonstone: a milky-white feldspar showing the prized floating blue-to-silver adularescent glow that gives the gem its name.
gemstone
Star Moonstone
A rare moonstone that shows a four-rayed star of light (asterism) across its domed surface along with adularescence.
gemstone
Rainbow Moonstone
A near-colorless feldspar showing blue and multicolored sheen; gemologically a white labradorite rather than true orthoclase moonstone.
gemstone
Grey Moonstone
A smoky gray feldspar moonstone, often called new moon stone, showing a silvery-blue adularescent sheen over a translucent gray body.
gemstone
Green Moonstone
A pale green variety of feldspar moonstone showing a soft white or bluish adularescent sheen over a greenish body.
gemstone
Black Moonstone
A dark gray-to-black feldspar variety of moonstone that shows blue and white adularescent flash against a smoky body.
gemstone
Cat's Eye Moonstone
A moonstone variety displaying a moving band of light (chatoyancy) across its surface in addition to the classic moonstone glow.
gemstone
Mica
A family of sheet silicate minerals that split into thin, flexible, shiny sheets, giving rocks a sparkling, layered appearance.
mineral
Selenite
A clear, soft crystalline variety of gypsum that forms glassy or fibrous wands, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
crystal
Mica Schist
A glittery, strongly foliated rock made mostly of aligned mica flakes that split into thin, shiny sheets.
metamorphic
Quartz-mica Schist
A foliated metamorphic rock of interlayered quartz and mica, producing a sparkling, easily split rock from metamorphosed sandy shales.
metamorphic
Staurolite-mica Schist
A mica schist studded with red-brown staurolite porphyroblasts, including the famous cross-shaped twins called fairy stones.
metamorphic
Tourmaline
A boron-rich silicate gemstone group famous for occurring in every color of the rainbow, sometimes several within a single crystal.
gemstone
Peristerite
A sodium-rich plagioclase moonstone whose fine intergrowth lamellae scatter light into a delicate blue, pigeon-neck sheen.
gemstone
Plum Tourmaline
A purplish, plum-toned elbaite tourmaline colored by manganese, blending the red of rubellite with violet-blue undertones.
gemstone
Rose Tourmaline
A soft to medium pink elbaite tourmaline in rose hues, colored by manganese and prized for romantic jewelry.
gemstone
Mint Tourmaline
A soft, pastel minty-green tourmaline prized for its fresh, light color, a delicate variety of green elbaite.
gemstone
Brown Tourmaline
Warm brown tourmaline, usually magnesium-rich dravite, with tones from pale champagne to deep coffee-brown.
gemstone
White Tourmaline
A colorless to milky-white elbaite tourmaline known as achroite, the rare nearly pigment-free member of the tourmaline group.
gemstone
Lemon Tourmaline
A bright lemon-to-canary yellow tourmaline colored by manganese, among the more cheerful and uncommon hues in the tourmaline family.
gemstone
Green Tourmaline
The green variety of tourmaline, also called verdelite, ranging from bright grass green to deep forest tones colored by iron.
gemstone