Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Turquoise
A prized blue to blue-green copper-aluminium phosphate, often veined with dark matrix, treasured for jewelry across many cultures.
mineralTurquoise Obsidian
A vivid turquoise-blue glass sold as obsidian; this bright color is virtually always manufactured rather than natural volcanic glass.
igneous
Howlite
A white, porous borate mineral webbed with gray-black veins, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.
mineral
Magnesite
A magnesium carbonate mineral, usually chalky white with grey veining, widely dyed to imitate turquoise and other stones.
mineral
Opalite
A man-made opalescent glass that glows milky blue in reflected light and warm orange when backlit, often sold as a crystal.
crystal
Orange Calcite
A soft, glowing orange variety of calcite colored by iron oxides, popular as tumbled stones and known for fizzing in acid.
mineral
Leopard Skin Jasper
A spotted jasper-rhyolite patterned with leopard-like rings and ovals, valued as an earthy ornamental and lapidary stone.
sedimentary
Phonolite
A silica-poor volcanic rock of alkali feldspar and feldspathoids that rings when struck, hence 'clinkstone.'
igneous
Serpentine
A group of green magnesium silicate minerals with a smooth, waxy feel, often carved and sometimes sold as imitation jade.
mineral
Petrified Wood
Ancient wood whose organic tissue has been replaced by silica, preserving the grain, rings, and structure of the original tree in stone.
sedimentary
Honey Garnet
A warm golden-brown garnet named for its honey color, typically a hessonite grossular variety with a distinctive treacly internal texture.
gemstone
Hessonite Garnet
The cinnamon-to-honey colored variety of grossular garnet, prized in jewelry and revered as the gem 'gomed' in Vedic astrology.
gemstoneParticolored Tourmaline
A tourmaline displaying two or more distinct colors in a single crystal, prized for natural color zoning like watermelon and bicolor stones.
gemstone
Bumblebee Jasper
A vivid yellow-and-black banded stone from Indonesian volcanic vents, colored by sulfur, arsenic minerals and iron oxides, not true jasper.
sedimentary
Rose Quartz
The soft pink, usually cloudy variety of quartz colored by trace titanium or microscopic inclusions, popular for carvings and beads.
crystalFlame Jasper
A fiery jasper whose red, orange, and yellow plumes lick across the stone like flames against an earthy background.
mineral
Dumortierite Quartz
Quartz colored blue by inclusions of the mineral dumortierite, giving a denim-like blue ornamental stone harder than dumortierite alone.
gemstone