Mineral Galleries

Amethyst Galleries' Mineral Gallery
http://mineral.galleries.com/

The Mineral Gallery is an electronic index into a mineralogical database. It provides multiple cross linked indexes into the set of common minerals, plus it provides a full text search index which aids in mineral identification. The Minerals_By_Class section provides additional descriptions of the mineralogical rationale of the class breakdown, and also leads into further descriptions of many related groups of minerals, such as the Garnet_Group. Also see our descriptions of physical characteristics. We try to be very educational!

Individual mineral pages contain one or more images of representative specimens (usually showing the most notable crystal forms), plus a description of the mineral, common and notable occurrences, and the usual mineral characteristics.

Most of the mineral specimens are for sale (your purchases fund this service). The Specimens link on a mineral page points to these specimens, which are identified by a small image (linked to a larger JPEG image), a description and price of the specimen, and (occasionally) a short movie of the specimen on a turntable.

This symbol marks the Amethyst Galleries' Special Specimens - these are our favorites, because something sets them apart from the others. It may be a special feature, an unusual crystal habit, an absolutely perfect crystal, or it may just be that it is an unusually beautiful specimen! If you see this symbol, check it out!

We are adding additional mineral species to the Mineral Gallery. Our goal is to have useful and interesting descriptions and images of about 600 different minerals (and varieties), and (hopefully) at least a few specimens of each for sale. As of September, 2006, we have descriptions of nearly 600 minerals, over 10,000 pictures of specimens (of 500 different kinds of minerals), and about 400 different kinds of minerals currently for sale. We also have several hundred other "educational" mineral pages, including descriptions of the various mineral classes, recognized groups, and physical characteristics.

At this time, we do not plan on including minerals that require a microscope to be seen (let alone identified), or minerals (in a series) that are indistinguishable from each other except in a well equipped lab, or, for that matter, mineral species which are not available for sale to the general public (such as single specimen species). This philosophy is changing, now that we are becoming advertiser supported. We plan to add information about many more minerals, plus elements and even rocks.

To see the entire list of the mineral species currently in our database, see this version of Minerals by Name. Note that the available Specimens change on a dynamic basis (even daily), as they are sold and replaced. We maintain a number of Sold specimens to provide additional specimen images of the mineral as an educational service.

So now go into your bead stash/or gem collection and check out what they looked like before touched by man!!!!

http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/by-name.htm

Surprised?

Can you name the specimens shown?