Minerals & Fossils  |  Tumbled Stones

Jade can refer to either nephrite (black, green, brown, yellow or white) or jadeite (green, yellow, white, pink, purple, orange, bluish, brown or gray). The emerald-green variety of jadeite is the most sought-after. Jade is the toughest naturally-ocurring mineral, withstanding enormous pressure and more elastic than steel. This toughness is why jade was so popularly used historically for stone axes, fish hooks, and other tools.

A gray/blue feldspar with an iridescent sheen that changes from green to peacock blue. Spectrolite is also sometimes called labradorite.

Lepidolite ranges in color including pink/purple, yellow, gray, colorless and white.

A banded, rich green carbonate of copper. It is often found with azurite. Malachite was often worn by the Greeks and Romans to ward off evil spirits, and was popular at the court of the Russian Czars.

A type of quartz, with a rosy pink color.

Ruby is the red form of the rare mineral corundum (every other color is sapphire), and is one of the most popular gemstones used in jewelry today. It is the next hardest mineral next to diamond, and a high-quality ruby is more valuable than a diamond of the same quality and size. Some display a star-like "asterism," known as star rubies.

A green stone that is often found with inclusions of ruby.

Rutilated quartz is rock crystal that has needle-like rutile inclusions running through it. The rutile resembles golden straw or hair, and is often associated with the hair of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, or the sweet-tipped arrows of love.

A type of quartz, usually a transluscent dark grey or brown in color.

Obsidian is a volcanic glass color variations including black, light brown, or brown with black. It can also have varying sheens including gold, silver, and rainbow. Snowflake obsidian is black with white patches where parts of the mineral began to crystallize.

Sodalite can range in color from dark blue, grey, and green, to yellow, white, light red, and colorless.

Tektite is a form of meteoric splash, resulting from the collision of a meteor and the Earth.

Also known as "cat's eye," tiger's eye is a brown chalcedony with a golden sheen called "chatoyancy." This is the reflection of light from parallel fibers or needle-like inclusions. It appears as a single bright line when cut and polished in a cabachon.