rock & mineral archive

Every specimen in the rotation for the home page's Rock/Mineral of the Week card. One gets picked automatically each week, this week is Sandstone.

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  Gneiss

  rock

  A high grade metamorphic rock with beautiful banding.

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  Diorite

  rock

  A coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock, speckled black and white like salt and pepper.

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  Sandstone this week

  rock

  A sedimentary rock made of compacted, cemented sand grains, often holds ripple marks and fossils.

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  Quartz

  mineral

  One of the most common minerals in Earth's crust, if you find a mineral outside, its probably quartz.

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  Pyrite

  mineral

  "Fool's gold", a metallic sulfide that on first glance resembles gold.

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  Ruby

  mineral

  A red variety of corundum, coloured by trace chromium, one of the hardest minerals in the world.

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  Amber

  mineral

  Fossilized tree resin, not technically a mineral, but its close enough.

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  Malachite

  mineral

  A vivid green copper carbonate mineral, often banded, formed where copper ores weather.

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  Hematite

  mineral

  An iron oxide mineral responsible for the rusty-red colour of a lot of soil and rock.

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  Talc

  mineral

  The softest mineral on the Mohs scale, so soft that you can scratch it with your fingernail.

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  Kaolin

  mineral

  A soft white clay mineral formed from weathered feldspar, used in porcelin and paper.

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  Smithsonite

  mineral

  A zinc carbonate mineral with a greasy luster, often found in botryoidal (grape-like) clusters.