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Moonstone and labradorite both do something quartz and calcite never do: hold perfectly still and let a soft light appear

“Jade” gets used as though it names a single stone, a specific shade of green with a specific texture. It

Obsidian looks like it should be classified alongside quartz points and calcite crystals, dark, glassy, occasionally faceted-looking where it’s broken.

Slice a piece of malachite and the cut face usually reveals concentric bands, light and dark green rings wrapping around

Turquoise has a reputation for looking basically the same everywhere it’s sold, robin’s-egg blue, often veined with dark matrix. In

Emerald, aquamarine, and morganite get sold in three completely different sections of a jewelry case, priced on three different scales,

Ruby and sapphire read as two completely different gemstones, one a saturated red, the other classically blue, and both get

“Garnet” sounds like it should name one mineral the way “quartz” does. It doesn’t. Garnet is a group of at

Fluorite gave modern science one of its more useful words almost by accident. In 1852, physicist George Gabriel Stokes was

Pyrite has been embarrassing prospectors for centuries, and it’s easy to see why. Freshly broken, it throws back a brassy,