Hello! I live in coastal New England and I found this small piece of mineral today at the beach. It’s faceted sort of, small, slightly transparent and is reddish/pinkish with flashlight light through it and appears red to the eye.

I think it’s garnet because of the kind of faceted shape and I’ve found what I thought was garnet inside of rocks that was this type of shape before (never at the beach). I’m leaning away from sea glass because (I know it’s hard to tell) the color is red over brown which is common on my local beaches. Would love to hear what others think. ☺️

One of the luckiest finds so far while rockhounding in Vantaa, Finland. The biggest garnet crystal size in this specimen is 25 mm for a size reference. And I can look for hours at the smaller garnet crystals in the big cluster on first couple of photos I posted.

Second picture is the inside of the big one on the first picture

Here’s a beautiful specimen of grass green cuprian austinite in a gossan matrix vug from the Ojuela mine, Mapimi municipality, Durango, Mexico

A beautiful saturated and hydrothermaly etched kunzite from the Mawi pegmatite, Nilaw-Kolum pegmatite field, Nuristan, Afghanistan

I've always assumed it was quartz. However, I just got a new industrial mohs kit from Mineral Lab and it tested at 8.5. I tested a few spots and verified with my loupe that it was not being scratched at 8; there were clearly visible streak marks left by the test tip. I also found some orange fluorescent inclusions under 365nm backlight seen in the last few photos, which I assume is calcite (ignore the blue color, I had a white towel nearby that was reflecting back onto the crystal 😵‍💫). Any ideas? Any other tests I could perform that would help? If it is quartz, why can't my mohs 8 test tip scratch it?

I'm no expert in geology, identifying crystals, or the various terminologies used to describe characteristics of crystals, gems, and rocks. I've self-taught anything I think I know and am trying to learn all I can 🫶🏼❤️

Salve a tutti e tutte, e da circa 5 giorni che sto lavando dei granati che ho trovato nelle mie valli, ma ci sono dei licheni che non riesco a togliere, ai franti ho già fatto fare dei bagni in acido cloridrico e acido ossalico ma i licheni non si sono ancora tolti, qualcuno ha idee su come toglierli?
(Lascio una foto fatta al microscopio di un granato che ho trovato)

found this cool rock at the bottom of a creek in southwest virginia. did a few google searches but was hoping maybe someone here could have more information. the creek is connected to an old furnace and we found a lot of slag and byproduct. you can shine a light through the rock and it’s a clear cloudy gray and looks like it could have some little bubbles in it. the brown part at the top feels like rock but it could just be mud i haven’t scrubbed it yet. the rock looks kinda translucent when wet. it’s very sparkly and has glossy patches on the underside :)) (pls ignore my halfway filled nails lol)

found this unusually heavy rock in the surf at Myrtle Beach. no fizz, barely magnetic. would you crack it open or leave it intact?