Rocks and Minerals Word Search With a Mohs Hardness Scale List

Print a rocks and minerals puzzle with its answer key for the day the specimen trays come out.

Name Date

Rocks and Minerals Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

HRVEOBSDSETWPSN

TNGROQLNUBANAYT

ALELFHIUMULTDPT

HCORRIPCNRCPYUP

DKDIAMONDDFYEMP

IFETCXFACESRXIL

WOMETAMORPHICCU

RNHFUOIXDNATDES

IOCORNCGFILEDNT

GHASENAADIEOQEE

NNLSVDLMDOUDIRR

EDCIGMINERALGRI

OFILSDOBSIDIANR

UDTDIARAAQUARTZ

SKEIRSHIAYDAOHT

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

QuartzQUARTZ
MicaMICA
CalciteCALCITE
TalcTALC
PyritePYRITE
DiamondDIAMOND
MineralMINERAL
LusterLUSTER
FractureFRACTURE
IgneousIGNEOUS
MetamorphicMETAMORPHIC
ObsidianOBSIDIAN
PumicePUMICE
ShaleSHALE
FossilFOSSIL
GeodeGEODE

16 of 24 words from the Rocks and Minerals Key Terms list.

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Word list

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Answer key: Rocks and Minerals Word Search

HRVEOBSDSETWPSN

TNGROQLNUBANAYT

ALELFHIUMULTDPT

HCORRIPCNRCPYUP

DKDIAMONDDFYEMP

IFETCXFACESRXIL

WOMETAMORPHICCU

RNHFUOIXDNATDES

IOCORNCGFILEDNT

GHASENAADIEOQEE

NNLSVDLMDOUDIRR

EDCIGMINERALGRI

OFILSDOBSIDIANR

UDTDIARAAQUARTZ

SKEIRSHIAYDAOHT

QUARTZ, MICA, CALCITE, TALC, PYRITE, DIAMOND, MINERAL, LUSTER, FRACTURE, IGNEOUS, METAMORPHIC, OBSIDIAN, PUMICE, SHALE, FOSSIL, GEODE

Next step Build a puzzle from the specimens in your own rock kit Scramble the same rock and mineral words

All 130 words

Mineral Names 32

Apatite Number 5 on the hardness scale; a form of it makes up much of your teeth and bones.
Azurite A soft, deep-blue mineral that contains copper.
Beryl A mineral that grows in six-sided crystals; its green gem form is emerald.
Biotite The field name for dark mica.
Calcite The mineral in limestone and marble; it fizzes in acid and is number 3 on the hardness scale.
Copper A reddish metal that can be found pure in nature as well as in ores.
Corundum Number 9 on the hardness scale; its gem forms are ruby and sapphire.
Diamond The hardest natural material, number 10 on the hardness scale; a form of pure carbon.
Feldspar The most common mineral group in the continents: about 41 percent of their crust by weight.
Fluorite A colorful mineral, number 4 on the hardness scale, that often grows in cubes.
Galena The chief ore of lead; it leaves a gray streak.
Garnet A group of minerals cut as gems and crushed as abrasive grit ever since the Bronze Age.
Gold A soft, dense yellow metal found pure in nature as nuggets and grains.

Show all 130 words (117 more)

Mineral Names, continued

Graphite A soft form of pure carbon, used in pencils and as a lubricant.
Gypsum A soft mineral, number 2 on the hardness scale, used to make plaster and drywall.
Halite Rock salt, the natural mineral form of sodium chloride.
Hematite An iron mineral that can look silver-gray or red but always leaves a rust-red streak.
Hornblende A field name for the dark amphibole minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks.
Kaolinite A soft white clay mineral. Rock rich in it is sold as china clay.
Magnetite A black iron ore that can turn a compass needle; it leaves a black streak.
Malachite A green, banded mineral that contains copper.
Mica A mineral group that splits into thin, springy sheets like the pages of a book.
Muscovite Common pale mica, which peels into thin sheets you can see through.
Olivine The main mineral of Earth's upper mantle; its gem form is peridot.
Orthoclase A kind of feldspar that marks number 6 on the hardness scale.
Pyrite Fool's gold: a brassy yellow iron mineral that leaves a greenish-black streak.
Quartz The second most common mineral in Earth's outer shell; number 7 on the hardness scale.
Sphalerite The chief ore of zinc, often found alongside galena.
Sulfur A bright yellow element that is sometimes found pure in nature.
Talc The softest mineral, number 1 on the hardness scale, and the main part of soapstone.
Topaz A gem mineral that marks number 8 on the hardness scale.
Tourmaline A group of gem minerals that contain boron and come in a wide range of colors.

How Minerals Are Identified 35

Acid test A check for carbonates: a drop of weak HCl on a specimen makes calcite fizz.
Brittle Likely to snap or shatter instead of bending; diamond is hard but also this.
Cleavage The way some minerals split along flat, smooth planes, as mica does.
Color The first thing you notice about a mineral, but a weak test, because impurities change it.
Conchoidal Broken in smooth curves like the inside of a shell, as obsidian and flint break.
Crystal A solid whose atoms sit in an orderly, repeating pattern, often with flat faces.
Cubic Shaped like a box with six square faces, as many pyrite and fluorite crystals are.
Density How much mass is packed into each cubic centimeter of a specimen.
Dull A luster with little or no shine, also called earthy.
Fingernail A handy scratch tool with a hardness of about 2.5.
Fluorescent Glowing with colored light under an ultraviolet lamp.
Fracture A break in a mineral that does not follow flat planes.
Glass plate A scratch tool with a hardness of about 5.5.
Glassy A luster like a window pane, one of the most common kinds; quartz and calcite have it.
Hand lens A small pocket magnifier for looking closely at grains and crystals.
Hardness How well a mineral resists being scratched, ranked from 1 to 10.
Hexagonal Six-sided, like the crystals of beryl.
Luster The way light plays on a mineral's surface: metallic, glassy, pearly or dull.
Magnetic Able to attract iron or be pulled by it, as lodestone is.
Metallic A luster that shines like polished steel, as pyrite and galena do.
Mineral A natural, inorganic solid with its own chemical makeup and an orderly inner structure.
Mohs The German geologist whose 1812 scale ranks ten minerals by how easily they scratch.
Opaque Lets no light through at all.
Pearly A soft glow seen on minerals built of thin, see-through sheets, such as muscovite.
Penny A copper coin with a hardness of about 3.5, used as a scratch tool.
Porcelain The unglazed tile that serves as a streak plate.
Scratch test Dragging one material across another to find out which is harder.
Silky A luster with the sheen of fine cloth, seen on minerals made of very fine fibers.
Specimen One sample of a rock or mineral, kept for study or for a collection.
Steel nail A scratch tool with a hardness of about 6.5.
Streak The color of the powder a mineral leaves when it is rubbed across unglazed tile.
Tenacity How well a mineral stands up to bending, breaking or crushing.
Translucent Lets some light through, but you cannot see clearly through it.
Transparent Clear enough to see through.
Vitreous The scientist's word for a glassy luster, from the Latin for glass.

Common Rocks 34

Andesite A volcanic rock named for the Andes mountains.
Basalt A dark volcanic rock with tiny grains. Nine tenths of Earth's volcanic rock is this kind.
Breccia A rock of sharp, angular broken pieces bound together by finer material.
Chalk A soft, white limestone made from the hard parts of tiny sea plankton.
Chert A hard sedimentary rock of quartz crystals too tiny to see; it breaks with sharp edges.
Coal A black or dark brown sedimentary rock that burns, formed from buried ancient plants.
Conglomerate A sedimentary rock of rounded, gravel-sized pieces held in finer sediment.
Diorite A coarse-grained igneous rock that falls between granite and gabbro in makeup.
Flint The name for chert when it is found in chalk.
Gabbro A dark, coarse-grained igneous rock with the same makeup as basalt.
Gneiss A metamorphic rock with dark and light bands; its name sounds like "nice".
Granite A coarse-grained igneous rock made mostly of quartz and feldspar.
Hornfels A hard metamorphic rock baked by the heat of nearby magma.
Igneous The rock family that starts as magma or lava; its name comes from the Latin for fire.
Limestone A sedimentary rock made mostly of calcite, often from the shells of sea life.
Marble Limestone that heat and pressure have changed into a metamorphic rock.
Metamorphic The rock family made when heat, pressure or hot fluids change a rock without melting it.
Obsidian Natural volcanic glass, made when lava cools with almost no crystal growth.
Pegmatite An igneous rock grown from giant crystals, most of them wider than 1 centimeter.
Peridotite The dense, olivine-rich rock that makes up most of Earth's upper mantle.
Phyllite A metamorphic rock that falls between slate and schist, with fine flakes of mica.
Pumice A pale volcanic rock so full of gas bubbles that it can float on water.
Quartzite A hard metamorphic rock that began as sandstone.
Rhyolite The volcanic rock with the same makeup as granite.
Rock A natural solid made of one or more minerals.
Sandstone A sedimentary rock of grains up to 2 mm across, mostly quartz or feldspar, cemented together.
Schist A metamorphic rock with visible flaky grains that splits easily into thin plates.
Scoria A dark, bubbly volcanic rock that, unlike pumice, usually sinks in water.
Sedimentary The rock family built from pieces of older rock, shells or minerals that settle and harden.
Shale The most common sedimentary rock: hardened mud that splits into thin layers.
Siltstone A sedimentary rock whose grains are finer than sand; it does not split into sheets as shale does.
Slate A very fine-grained metamorphic rock that began as shale.
Soapstone A metamorphic rock made largely of talc, carved for thousands of years.
Tuff Rock formed from volcanic ash; the Easter Island statues were carved from it.

Gems, Ores and Uses 29

Amber Fossilized tree resin, worn as a gem although it is not a mineral.
Amethyst The violet gem form of quartz.
Bauxite A sedimentary rock rich in aluminum, and the main source of that metal.
Birthstone A gem that stands for the month a person was born.
Carat The unit of mass for gems, equal to 200 milligrams.
Emerald The green gem form of beryl.
Facet One of the small, flat, polished faces cut into a gem.
Fossil The preserved remains, print or trace of a once-living thing from the distant past.
Gem A mineral cut and polished to be worn as jewelry.
Geode A hollow, roughly round rock that is often lined with crystals.
Geologist A scientist who studies rocks and the history of the Earth.
Jade An ornamental stone, often green; the name covers two different minerals.
Lapidary The craft of shaping and polishing gems and stones, or a person who does it.
Lodestone A naturally magnetized piece of magnetite, used in the first compasses.
Meteorite A rock from outer space that survived its fall and landed on a planet or moon.
Mine A place where ore or coal is dug out of the ground.
Nugget A natural lump of pure gold.
Opal A gem of silica and water that has no crystal structure, so it is not a true mineral.
Ore Rock that holds enough of a valuable metal or mineral to be worth digging up.
Panning Swirling stream gravel in a shallow dish to find gold.
Petrology The part of geology that deals with rocks and how they came to form.
Prospector A person who searches an area for gold or other valuable minerals.
Quarry An open pit where stone such as limestone, marble or granite is dug out.
Rock hound A hobbyist who collects minerals, fossils and interesting stones.
Ruby The red gem form of corundum; chromium gives it the color.
Sapphire The gem form of corundum in any color but red; most people picture the blue kind.
Smelting Using heat and a chemical helper to get a metal out of its ore.
Turquoise A gem mineral colored sky blue to green by the copper in it. Light does not pass through it.
Vein A sheet-like body of crystallized minerals inside a rock.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-09-19 against the United States Geological Survey (https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-difference-between-rock-and-mineral), the National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/articles/mohs-hardness-scale.htm) and Wikipedia, among them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale. Spellings follow the American Heritage Dictionary (https://www.ahdictionary.com/). Some clues were reworded on 2026-09-20, and any fact that changed was checked against Wikipedia the same day. Licence: own work

How it works

This rocks and minerals word search keeps minerals and rocks in separate lists, as a specimen tray does. The first grid hides 16 of 24 key terms, such as Quartz, Luster and Obsidian; 8 lists hold 130 words.

Read the full guide

Pick the list that matches the lesson

The Start from a list row, under the puzzle, offers 8 lists. For a mineral word search, choose Mineral Names (32 words) or How Minerals Are Identified (35). For a rocks word search, choose Common Rocks (34): the three rock families and examples of each. Gems, Ores and Uses has 29. Mohs Hardness Scale holds the ten scale minerals and four scratch tools. Easy Rocks and Minerals gathers 30 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Mica and Tuff.

What comes out of the printer

The printout is 2 pages, Letter or A4: the puzzle sheet with a Name and Date line, then a key with each word ringed. Pick Save as PDF in the print window to keep a file.

A fingernail is about 2.5 on the scale, so it scratches Gypsum (2) but not Calcite (3).
Scratch test hides as one run of letters, SCRATCHTEST. Six entries work this way; the key terms are single words.
Sedimentary and Metamorphic fill 11 squares each, and the grid is never smaller than 12 by 12.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between a rock and a mineral?

A mineral is a natural, inorganic solid with its own chemical makeup and an orderly structure, such as Quartz. A rock is made of one or more minerals, such as Granite. That follows the U.S. Geological Survey, and is why the lists are separate.

Does the puzzle cover the Mohs hardness scale?

Yes. One list holds all ten scale minerals, from Talc at 1 to Diamond at 10, with Fingernail, Penny, Glass plate and Steel nail. Tick Show clues, not words, in More options: each mineral's clue gives its number, so the sheet reviews the scale.

Which rocks are in the word search?

Common Rocks has Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic plus 31 more words, from Granite, Basalt and Obsidian to Sandstone, Shale, Marble, Slate and Gneiss. Words for how rocks form, such as melting and cooling, are on the rock cycle word search.

How are minerals identified?

By simple desk tests: Hardness, Streak, Luster, Cleavage, Fracture and Color, plus the Acid test and a Hand lens. All are in How Minerals Are Identified. The Pyrite clue gives one result: a brassy yellow mineral that leaves a greenish-black streak.

All 130 words

Mineral Names 32

Mineral Names, continued

How Minerals Are Identified 35

Common Rocks 34

Gems, Ores and Uses 29

How it works

Pick the list that matches the lesson

What comes out of the printer

Questions and answers

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