Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Topaz

A hard, brilliant fluorosilicate gemstone occurring in many colors, from precious golden imperial topaz to popular blue topaz.

A durable blue silicate gem, mostly produced by treating colorless topaz, popular for its bright color and affordability.

A colorless, transparent variety of topaz valued as an affordable, hard, brilliant alternative to diamond in jewelry.

The deepest, most saturated blue grade of treated topaz, prized for its rich steely-blue color and durability in jewelry.

The golden-yellow variety of quartz, ranging from pale lemon to deep madeira amber, often produced by heating amethyst.

The hardest known natural material, a crystalline form of pure carbon prized as the ultimate gemstone for its brilliance and fire.

Natural emerald crystals still embedded in their host rock, prized as mineral specimens that show how the gem grew in place.

A rare yellow to golden variety of andradite garnet, the topaz-colored cousin of green demantoid, prized for high dispersion and brilliance.

A vivid greenish-yellow quartz, usually heat-treated or irradiated, prized for its clean clarity and bright lemon color.

A black metallic manganese iron oxide famous for sharp cubic crystals, classically found with red beryl and topaz in Utah rhyolite.

A trade term for yellow garnets, including golden grossular, yellow andradite (topazolite), and yellow-green Mali garnet.

A rich brown variety of andradite (or grossular-andradite) garnet, marketed for its warm chocolate color and notable brilliance.

The calcium-iron garnet species, ranging from brilliant green demantoid to golden topazolite and jet-black melanite.

An intermediate plutonic rock with nearly equal alkali and plagioclase feldspar and very little quartz, sitting between diorite and syenite.