Matching Game: Minerals

Flip two cards at a time and match each crystal to the name of its mineral. Every card says whether it is a Crystal or a Name, and a pair is always one of each. The game counts a mistake when you miss a match on a card you have already seen.

How to tell them apart#

A geologist starts with the shape a mineral grows in and with its color and shine. Several minerals here share a shape, such as the cubes of pyrite, halite and galena, so look at the color and the shine as well: brassy for pyrite, white for halite and gray for galena.

How to remember the minerals#

Link something you see in the drawing to the sound of the name with a mental image. For galena, you might picture a gale blowing the gray cubes across the rock. The stranger the picture, the easier it is to recall. See how to create mnemonic images for more ways to build them.

To remember where each card is, give every position on the board a place in a memory palace, and walk back through the palace when you need to find a partner.

About the drawings#

The crystals are drawn for this site. Each card shows one familiar shape and color for its mineral, but many minerals come in more than one, so a stone in a museum case may not look like its card.

Try a bigger board#

Every game deals a different set of minerals, so play again to meet new ones. Once you can clear a small board with only a few mistakes, move up a size.

Try another matching game or see all of our free memory games.