Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Serpentine

A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.

The classic green ornamental gem, either jadeite or nephrite, valued for millennia for its toughness and rich color, especially imperial green.

A green ornamental stone, often serpentine-rich marble or verde antique, valued for its rich green color and white veining.

A green, often mottled metamorphic rock formed by the hydration of mantle rocks, soft and waxy with a smooth, slippery feel.

A rounded sedimentary nodule cracked internally and filled with veins of yellow calcite, prized for its striking dragon-skin patterning.

A translucent yellow-green silicate famous for its botryoidal 'grape' clusters, often hosting needle-like sprays of black epidote.

A tough, prized ornamental gem that is actually two distinct minerals, jadeite and nephrite, revered for millennia in many cultures.

A multicolored orbicular chalcedony from Madagascar famous for its circular eye-like orbs in greens, pinks, whites, and yellows.

A chalcedony agate with red, orange, and yellow plume or banding patterns that rise like dancing flames within the stone.

A vivid Australian jasper-like silica stone in earthy reds, yellows, and purples, formed from silicified radiolarian sediment.

A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.

An opal cut to show chatoyancy, a sharp moving band of light like a cat's eye, usually in honey, green or yellow common opal.

A water-bearing massive grossular garnet, usually green or pink, widely used as a tough jade-like carving stone.

A white chalcedony filled with green or black dendritic, tree-like mineral inclusions that resemble ferns or moss frozen in stone.