Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia

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

Pyrite

The brassy iron sulfide mineral famous as 'fool's gold,' known for sharp metallic cubes and a much higher hardness than real gold.

An iron-rich orthopyroxene prized for its warm bronze schiller, a metallic-looking sheen created by tiny mineral inclusions.

Black volcanic glass with a warm bronze or coppery sheen produced by light reflecting off aligned microscopic inclusions.

Dark, organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock formed in oxygen-poor waters, often a source rock for oil and gas.

A rare platinum arsenide and the most important platinum-bearing mineral, forming bright metallic cubic crystals.

An orthorhombic titanium dioxide polymorph forming tabular brown to black crystals with brilliant metallic-adamantine luster.

A silver sulfide that is one of the most important silver ore minerals, forming dark metallic crystals and wires.

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

A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.

A feldspar, better known as sunstone, that sparkles with metallic glints from tiny mineral platelets, an effect called aventurescence.

A black volcanic glass that displays shifting rainbow or metallic sheen from microscopic nanoparticle layers trapped inside.

A black obsidian displaying a golden metallic sheen caused by light reflecting off aligned microscopic gas bubbles or mineral inclusions.