Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Hematite

The principal iron ore, a heavy iron oxide ranging from metallic silver-gray to earthy red, always leaving a tell-tale red-brown streak.

A metamorphosed banded iron formation of alternating quartz and iron-oxide layers, mined as a major iron ore.

A rare dark ultramafic alkaline igneous rock built mostly of titanaugite and magnetite, named for Jacupiranga in Brazil.

A banded, metamorphosed iron formation in which bright red jasper alternates with silvery hematite or magnetite layers.

A natural sheen obsidian whose black glass displays a soft, velvety rainbow shimmer from aligned magnetite nanoparticles when polished and tilted.

A naturally magnetized variety of magnetite that attracts iron, historically used as the first magnetic compass.

Clear quartz mined in the Himalayan region, often double-terminated and containing dark hematite or carbon inclusions.

An iron-rich sedimentary rock, often heavy and rusty-weathering, historically mined as a major source of iron ore.

Ancient chemically deposited rock of alternating iron-oxide and silica bands recording Earth's early oxygenation and a major iron ore source.

A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.

A feldspar gemstone that sparkles with metallic glints (aventurescence) caused by tiny reflective copper or hematite platelets.

A dark green jasper-chalcedony speckled with red iron-oxide spots, classically known as bloodstone or heliotrope.

A dark green-and-black stromatolite jasper patterned with swirling orbs, formed from fossilized ancient microbial colonies.