Mineral Properties

Minerals by Physical and Optical Properties Tables

Minerals by Calculated Radioactivity and by X-Ray Diffraction.

Other Sources of Mineral Identification

The "Collectors Corner" of the Mineralogical Society of America features an excellent, on-line,  mineral identification key by Alan Plante, Donald Peck, & David Von Bargen. The identification key is based on simple mineralogical tests such as luster, hardness, color and physical description for the most common minerals an individual is likely to encounter.

Search Minerals

Examples of Complex Searches

Example: "luster=metallic" or "luster=sub met*" "streak=gray" "lead=4*" finds all metallic minerals with a gray streak containing 40.0% to 49.9% of lead.
Example: "density-2.6*" "hardness-3*" "luster-vitreous" "color-white" or "color-colorless" for all white, vitreous minerals that have a hardness of 3 to 3.5 and a density of 2.6 to 2.69
Example: "sodium-3" "biaxial" "cleavage-00*" finds all biaxial minerals with a basal cleavage with 3 to 3.99% sodium.
Example: "luster-adamantine" "color-yellow" "cleavage-none" finds all yellow minerals with no cleavage and an adamantine luster.
Example: "iron-3" barium cerium finds all minerals with 3 to 3.99% iron containing cerium and barium.
Example: "intensity-o-3.5*" boron finds all minerals containing boron with the most intense x-ray d-spacing of 3.5 to 3.599 angstroms.
Example: biaxial-a1.7* bire-0.015* pleochroism "pale blue" finds all biaxial minerals with the lowest index of refraction from 1.7 to 1.799, a birefringence of 0.0150 to 0.0159 and a pale blue pleochroism.