The Minerals Encyclopedia: 700 Minerals, Gems and Rocks

Price: $29.95 - $25.90
(as of Dec 13, 2025 06:25:10 UTC – Details)

Mineral collecting by amateur “rockhounds” has never been more popular. Old quarries, road cuts, and exposed landscapes are being examined by new generations of minerals enthusiasts. Each needs a comprehensive guidebook with clear photographs and accurate data. This is it.

In a thick but handy format, more than 700 different minerals and rocks are grouped by color (for ease of location in the book) — blue, red, yellow, brown, green, white and black crystals; brown and gray sedimentary rocks; and meteorites for anyone lucky enough to find one.

Each has a picture — four to a page — opposite detailed but clear data:

Chemical formula Hardness Color Density Lustre Cleavage Fracture Tenacity Crystal form Similar minerals and where they are likely to occur. And many will have a diagram of its crystal form — up to four, for fluorite, for example.

The Minerals Encyclopedia is unusual for the number of minerals it covers: more than 700 in 448 pages, with a useful glossary, an introduction to mineral collecting, printed front and back flaps that offer quick reference in the field, and a measuring rule on the back cover. This is a superior reference for rockhounds, geology students and outdoors people with an interest in what’s under their feet.

From the Publisher

The Minerals Encyclopedia: 700 Minerals, Gems and Rocks

A superior reference for rockhounds, geology students and outdoors people with an interest in what’s under their feet.

Mineral collecting by amateur “rockhounds” has never been more popular. Old quarries, road cuts, and exposed landscapes are being examined by new generations of minerals enthusiasts. Each needs a comprehensive guidebook with clear photographs and accurate data. This is it.

The Minerals Encyclopedia is unusual for the number of minerals it covers: more than 700 in 448 pages, with a useful glossary, an introduction to mineral collecting, printed front and back flaps that offer quick reference in the field, and a measuring rule on the back cover.

What stone is that?

Lapis Lazuli

Usage: Cabochons as ring stones and for brooches, pendants, spheres for stone necklaces, also often as handicraft items.

Treatment: Non-beautiful blue lapis lazuli is frequently colored by placing it in dye solutions. However, this can be easily identified by rubbing with alcohol or acetone; dyed stones color the cotton pad blue.

Differentiation: The essentially always present inclusions of pyrite and calcite are highly characteristic. They are always absent in other dyed stones.

Staurolite

Morphology: Prismatic to tabular crystals, often cruciform twins (right-angled or intergrown at about 60°), always anhedral.

Origin and occurrence: Anhedral in mica schists and gneisses.

Accessory minerals: Quartz, mica, kyanite.

Similar minerals: Tourmaline always clearly exhibits trigonal sym-metry and does not form cruciform twins; kyanite is never dark brown; garnet has a distinct cubic crystal form; unlike staurolite, andalusite has an almost square cross-section.

Gratonite

Morphology: Prismatic crystals with characteristic trigonal end faces, radial aggregates, uneven.

Origin and occurrence: In hydrothermal deposits, in subvolcanic tin-silver deposits.

Accessory minerals: Jordanite, cerussite, pyrite, enargite, tinstone, argentite.

Similar minerals: Its characteristic crystal formmakes gratonite unmistakable; tourmaline does not have a metallic luster; pris-matic tinstone is tetragonal.

Chrysocolla

Use: Cabochons as ring stones and for brooches, pendants, spheres for stone necklaces, also often as handicraft items.

Differentiation: The practically always present intergrowths with malachite (green) make the stone very typical and unmistakable in appearance.

Rhodonite

Use: Cabochons as ring stones and for brooches, pendants, spheres for stone necklaces, also often as handicraft items.

Differentiation: Due to its color and typical black veining, it is impossible to confuse rhodonite with any other gemstone or semi-precious stone.

Andalusite

Use: As ring stones, for pendants. Due to chiastolite’s distinct cru-ciform shape and its occurrence near the pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, chiastolite pendants were often worn as religious amulets.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Firefly Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 15, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0228103622
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0228103622
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1 x 7.75 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #44,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #3 in Mineralogy (Books) #12 in Rocks & Minerals #494 in Encyclopedias & Subject Guides
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