Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Peridotite

A dense, coarse-grained ultramafic rock rich in olivine that makes up most of the Earth's upper mantle.

A depleted mantle peridotite of olivine and orthopyroxene, the refractory residue left after basaltic melt is extracted from the mantle.

An ultramafic intrusive rock made almost entirely of olivine, representing mantle material.

An ultramafic rock of olivine and clinopyroxene, a peridotite variety common as cumulate layers in mafic intrusions.

The most common type of mantle peridotite, made of olivine with both orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene, representing fertile upper-mantle rock.

The gem-quality green variety of olivine, peridot is colored by iron and is one of the few gems found in only one color.