Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Milky Quartz
The most common variety of quartz, milky white from microscopic fluid and gas inclusions, forming massive veins worldwide.
crystal
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystal
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz that displays a six-rayed star (asterism) when cut as a cabochon, caused by microscopic rutile-like inclusions.
gemstone
Desert Rose
A rosette-shaped cluster of bladed gypsum or barite crystals that traps sand, forming flower-like formations in arid deserts.
mineralRegency Rose Agate
A prized plume agate with rose-pink and red feathery inclusions suspended in clear chalcedony, from the western U.S.
gemstone
Snow Quartz
An opaque, snow-white variety of quartz whose milky color comes from countless tiny gas and fluid inclusions.
crystal
Strawberry Quartz
A pink-to-red quartz colored by iron oxide inclusions that create a speckled, strawberry-like appearance within clear crystal.
crystal
Smoky Quartz
The smoky brown to gray variety of quartz, colored by natural irradiation, valued as both a gemstone and crystal specimen.
crystal
Girasol Quartz
A translucent milky quartz that shows a soft, floating blue-white glow when light passes through it.
crystal
Lithium Quartz
A quartz crystal containing pink to lilac lithium-bearing mineral inclusions that give a soft cloudy lavender or rose coloration.
crystal
Morion Quartz
The darkest, near-opaque black variety of smoky quartz, colored by natural radiation acting on trace aluminum.
crystal
Tourmalinated Quartz
Clear or milky quartz threaded with black needles of tourmaline (schorl), combining quartz clarity with dramatic dark inclusions.
crystal
Faden Quartz
Tabular quartz crossed by a milky white thread-like line marking where the crystal repeatedly cracked and re-healed.
crystal
Green Quartz
A green variety of macrocrystalline quartz, usually the heat- or radiation-altered prasiolite, prized for its soft mint hue.
crystal
White Opal
The most common precious opal, with a pale milky body that shows softer pastel flashes of play-of-color throughout.
gemstone
Pink Emerald
A trade name sometimes used for pink beryl (morganite), the manganese-colored rose-to-peach variety of the emerald mineral.
gemstone
Thulite
A pink, manganese-rich variety of zoisite used as an ornamental gemstone, often mottled with white quartz and grey matrix.
gemstone
Morganite
The pink-to-peach variety of beryl colored by manganese, popular for romantic engagement jewelry.
gemstone
Syenite
A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock dominated by alkali feldspar with little or no quartz.
igneous
Citrine
The golden-yellow variety of quartz, ranging from pale lemon to deep madeira amber, often produced by heating amethyst.
gemstone
White Obsidian
A pale, partly crystallized volcanic glass; genuinely white obsidian is uncommon and usually reflects devitrification or spherulitic growth in the glass.
igneous
Rosolite Garnet
A rose-pink variety of grossular garnet from Mexico, also known as landerite or xalostocite, prized for its soft pink color.
gemstone
Prasiolite
A pale green variety of quartz, usually created by heat-treating amethyst, often marketed as green amethyst.
gemstone
Selenite
A clear, soft crystalline variety of gypsum that forms glassy or fibrous wands, so soft it can be scratched with a fingernail.
crystal