Mineral Guides

Quick answer: A mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic solid with a defined chemical composition and an ordered atomic structure,

Quick answer: Hematite (Fe2O3) and goethite (FeO(OH)) are iron oxide minerals that color much of the world’s red and yellow-brown

Quick answer: Lepidolite is a pink to purple mica that contains lithium. It was named in 1792, from the Greek

Quick answer: Chrysocolla and shattuckite are both blue-green copper silicates that form in the weathered zones of copper deposits and

Quick answer: Petrified wood is a tree that turned to stone without losing its shape. After rapid burial in sediment

Quick answer: Azurite is a deep-blue copper carbonate that slowly converts to green malachite, a related copper carbonate with more

Quick answer: Prehnite is often called the first mineral named after a person: Dutch colonel Hendrik von Prehn, who brought

Quick answer: Stilbite is a zeolite mineral that grows in “bowtie” or sheaf-shaped bundles of crystals inside gas cavities in

Quick answer: Tanzanite, the blue-violet variety of the mineral zoisite, comes from only one place on Earth: a small mining