Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Rock Salt
An evaporite rock of the mineral halite (sodium chloride), the source of common salt, with a distinctive salty taste.
sedimentary
Rock Gypsum
A soft sedimentary evaporite made of massive gypsum, deposited when sulfate-rich seawater or lake water evaporates and concentrates.
sedimentary
Coral Rock
A porous limestone built from the calcium carbonate skeletons of corals and reef organisms, the lithified remains of ancient or modern reefs.
sedimentaryAsphalt Rock
A porous sedimentary rock naturally saturated with bitumen, dark, tarry-smelling, and historically mined for paving.
sedimentary
Calc-Silicate Rock
A metamorphic rock of calcium-rich silicate minerals formed from impure limestone or dolomite altered by heat and fluids.
metamorphic
Talc-carbonate Rock
A soft metamorphic rock made of talc and magnesite or dolomite, formed by hydrothermal alteration of ultramafic rocks.
metamorphic
Lithic Sandstone
A sandstone in which the dominant grains are fragments of pre-existing rocks rather than single minerals, signaling rapid erosion nearby.
sedimentary
Halite
The natural mineral form of table salt, a soft, water-soluble evaporite that forms perfect cubic crystals and tastes salty.
mineral
Coquina
A soft, porous limestone made of loosely cemented shell and coral fragments, used as a coastal building stone.
sedimentary
Dolomite
A calcium-magnesium carbonate mineral and rock similar to limestone but harder and only weakly reactive to acid.
mineral
Gypsum
A very soft sulfate mineral defining Mohs 2, occurring as selenite, satin spar, alabaster, and desert rose, used to make plaster.
mineral
Breccia
A coarse rock of angular, sharp-edged fragments cemented in a matrix, marking nearby rockfall, faulting, or impact.
sedimentary
Coal
A combustible black sedimentary rock formed from ancient plant matter and burned for centuries as a primary fossil fuel.
sedimentary
Cataclasite
A cohesive fault rock formed by brittle crushing and grinding of rock along a fault zone, with angular fragments in a fine matrix.
metamorphic
Glauconite
A soft, green iron-potassium mica that forms in marine sediments and gives greensand its characteristic olive color.
mineral
Fossiliferous Limestone
Calcium-carbonate sedimentary rock packed with visible fossils, recording ancient marine life within an easily scratched, fizzing matrix.
sedimentaryHutcheonite
A titanium-aluminum garnet discovered in calcium-aluminum inclusions of the Allende meteorite, recording the earliest history of the solar system.
mineral
Claystone
A very fine-grained sedimentary rock made mostly of clay minerals, smooth to the touch and lacking the gritty feel of siltstone.
sedimentary
Anorthosite
An intrusive igneous rock made almost entirely of plagioclase feldspar, famous as the rock of the lunar highlands.
igneous
Peridotite
A dense, coarse-grained ultramafic rock rich in olivine that makes up most of the Earth's upper mantle.
igneousGondite
A metamorphic rock made chiefly of manganese-rich spessartine garnet and quartz, formed from ancient manganese-bearing sediments.
metamorphic
Skarn
A calc-silicate rock formed by chemical exchange between magma and carbonate rock, often rich in garnet and economically important ore minerals.
metamorphic
Phosphorite
Phosphate-rich sedimentary rock, the world's main source of phosphorus for fertilizers, formed in nutrient-rich marine settings.
sedimentary
Epidosite
A hard, pistachio-green rock composed mainly of epidote and quartz, formed by hydrothermal alteration of mafic rocks.
metamorphic