Rockhounding Map & Sites in Oregon: 682 Locations for Crystal Hunting, Gem Mining & More
Oregon Locations
682 locations found in Oregon
Oregon has 682 documented rockhounding and rock hunting sites, including locations for Gold, Copper, and Silver. Whether you're crystal hunting, gem mining, or mineral collecting. Use the interactive map above to filter by mineral type, location type, and find GPS coordinates for each site.
Last updated: — 682 verified locations
Recommended Gear for Oregon
Estwing E3-22P Rock Pick
The industry-standard 22oz geological hammer. One-piece forged steel with shock-reduction grip.
Clear Anti-Fog Safety Glasses (4 Pack)
Adjustable, anti-fog lenses for clear vision in any conditions. About $5 per pair.
Watertight Medical Kit
Compact, waterproof first aid kit with bandages, moleskin, and field essentials.
Northwest Treasure Hunter's Gem and Mineral Guide
Whether you're digging for the first time or are an experienced rockhound or "prospector," with a simple rock hammer and...
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The Best Rockhounding Sites in Oregon
The best free obsidian collecting in America. The BLM set aside this pair of volcanic buttes off Highway 20 specifically for rockhounds, and the ground is littered with obsidian — black, mahogany, rainbow, and sheen varieties. No fees, no digging required to fill a bag, and enough material that a hundred years of collectors haven’t made a dent.
The most famous thunderegg dig in the world, on the agate beds north of Madras. You dig your own thundereggs out of the ranch’s beds for a per-pound fee, and the sawn halves — agate, common opal, and moss inclusions in a rhyolite shell — are the classic Oregon souvenir. Call ahead; digging depends on season and conditions.
A working fee mine in the Lake County high desert producing Oregon sunstone in red, green, and clear — the state gemstone, a copper-bearing feldspar found nowhere else in this form. Pay-to-dig arrangements range from screening pre-run ore to full days in fresh material, and gem-grade reds do come out.
Free thunderegg digging in the Ochocos. The forest’s volcanic beds around White Rock carry thundereggs with agate, chalcedony, and opal centers, and no fee or permission stands between you and them — just forest roads, a shovel, and some effort. The Ochocos are the public-land answer to the fee ranches.
Owyhee canyon country on the Idaho line, documented for agate, jasper, chert, and opalized wood weathering out of volcanic ash. Gravel roads, badlands scenery, and material scattered through every wash. Pair it with the Bruneau country across the border for a full desert weekend.
The Hart Mountain country east of Plush, documented for agate, chalcedony, geodes, jasper, opal, and thundereggs — one of the most varied free collecting areas in the state. Remote high desert on and around the antelope refuge; check refuge rules for where collecting is allowed before you dig.
The central coast’s agate beaches. Winter surf strips the sand off gravel beds around Florence and the receding tide leaves agates, jasper, petrified wood, moonstone, and even garnet exposed. Hunt the gravel patches at low tide after a storm — the classic Oregon beachcombing trip.
The agatized limb cast locality — ancient wood replaced by agate that preserves the shape of branches and limbs. The South Fork country southeast of Prineville gives up casts in the washes and rimrock, and good pieces cut beautifully. A focused hunt for a material Oregon is famous for.
Rockhounding Regions of Oregon
| Region | Top sites | What you'll find |
|---|---|---|
| Madras–Ashwood thunderegg country | Richardson’s Rock Ranch, Ashwood, Antelope, Forked Horn Butte | Thundereggs — Oregon’s state rock — with agate, jasper, geodes, and jade in the central Oregon volcanics |
| Ochoco Mountains | White Rock Springs, South Fork Crooked River, Bear Creek | Forest thunderegg beds with agate, chalcedony, and opal; agatized limb casts on the Crooked River; moss agate and drusy quartz at Bear Creek |
| Glass Buttes and the high desert | Glass Butte Recreational Rockhound Area, Warm Springs Reservoir | Obsidian by the bucketful at Glass Buttes; agate, black agate, jasper, and petrified wood in the Warm Springs country |
| Lake County sunstone country | Spectrum Sunstone Mine, Lakeview area, west side of Warner Peak | Oregon sunstone — the state gemstone — in red, green, and clear; agate, geodes, thundereggs, and opal through the Warner country |
| Owyhee country (southeast) | Succor Creek | Agate, jasper, chert, and opalized wood in the canyon washes along the Idaho line |
| The coast and coastal rivers | Florence and Winchester Bay beaches, Rogue River beaches, the Umpqua rivers | Beach agates, jasper, moonstone, and garnet in the surf gravel; carnelian and petrified wood in the Umpqua gravels |
What Minerals & Gems Can You Find in Oregon?
Oregon has 139 documented specimen types across 682 sites. Here are the most commonly reported:
Click on any specimen above to see all locations where it can be found in Oregon.
Best Time for Crystal Hunting in Oregon
The high desert — Glass Buttes, the sunstone country, Succor Creek — collects best in late spring and fall. Summer works at elevation but bring shade and water; winter snow and the clay roads that follow rain close things down fast. The fee digs run seasons too: call Richardson’s and the sunstone mines before driving out.
The coast runs backward: winter is prime. Storm surf strips sand off the gravel beds, and the best agate hunting of the year is a calm low tide right after a big blow, December through March. Summer beaches are sanded in and picked over.
The Ochoco thunderegg beds sit under snow into late spring — the forest season is roughly June through October. River collecting on the Umpqua and Crooked River drainages is best at late-summer low water, when bars and limb-cast washes are exposed.
Check current weather and road conditions before heading out, especially for remote BLM and Forest Service roads.
Where to Find Sunstone in Oregon
Oregon sunstone is the state gemstone — a feldspar (labradorite) with copper inclusions that produce a distinctive red, orange, or green aventurescent flash. This is the only location in the world where copper-bearing sunstone is found. The sunstone occurs in a basalt flow in the high desert of Lake and Harney counties.
Top sites:
- BLM Sunstone Collection Area, Lake County — Free public collecting area on BLM land. Surface collecting and shallow digging in the volcanic soil. No equipment restrictions for hand tools. Remote — high-clearance vehicle recommended. No services for 30+ miles.
- Spectrum Sunstone Mine, Plush — Fee dig site on a private claim. Higher-quality material and mining assistance. Open seasonally.
Oregon sunstone ranges from clear to red, orange, green, and bicolor. The copper inclusions produce a metallic schiller (aventurescence) visible when the stone is rotated in light. Gem-quality transparent red stones command high prices. Surface collect by screening the volcanic soil with a 1/4 inch mesh classifier. The stones are small (mostly under 1 carat rough) and glassy. A spray bottle helps — sunstone is easier to spot when wet.
Where to Find Thundereggs in Oregon
Oregon designated the thunderegg as its state rock in 1965. Thundereggs are spherical nodules (typically 2-6 inches) with a rough exterior and an agate, jasper, or opal interior. They formed in Tertiary-age rhyolite ash flows and are found in nearly every county in eastern Oregon. The name comes from a Warm Springs tribal legend.
Top sites:
- Richardson's Rock Ranch, Madras — Fee dig site. Dig thundereggs from the rhyolite ash. Consistent production. Tools available. Sedan access. One of the most popular collecting sites in Oregon.
- Priday Plume Beds, Madras area — Famous for plume agate and thundereggs. Access varies — check current status.
- Succor Creek State Natural Area, Malheur County — Thundereggs in rhyolite. Surface collecting allowed in the state natural area.
Thundereggs look like ordinary round rocks from the outside — rough, gray to brown, warty exterior. The interior is the surprise: cut them open (rock saw or tile saw) to reveal banded agate, plume agate, moss agate, or opal centers. Not every thunderegg has a great interior — it is part of the fun. Dig multiple and cut them later. Richardson's will cut them for you on site (fee).
Where to Find Agate & Jasper in Oregon
Oregon is one of the premier agate and jasper states in the US. The beaches of the Oregon coast produce agates year-round (transported from volcanic sources in the Coast Range), and the high desert of eastern Oregon produces jasper, petrified wood, and agate in volcanic terranes. Notable varieties include Biggs jasper, Morrisonite jasper, and Priday plume agate.
Top sites:
- Agate Beach, Newport — Named for the agates that wash ashore. Free, public beach. Best after winter storms. Agates are small (thumb to golf ball) with translucent banding.
- Biggs Junction area, Sherman County — Biggs jasper (scenic picture jasper with landscape patterns) on BLM and private land. Surface collecting.
Oregon beach agates are translucent carnelian (orange-red) and clear to gray banded varieties. They concentrate at the high-tide line after storms. Wet them to check — agates glow against the surrounding dark sand. Eastern Oregon jasper is opaque and prized for scenic patterns (Biggs jasper looks like landscape paintings). Both are hardness 7 and take an excellent polish. This is premier lapidary material.
Oregon Rockhounding Laws & Public Land Rules
BLM Land
Oregon has approximately 16 million acres of BLM land — more than any state except Alaska and Nevada. Recreational collecting is allowed for personal, non-commercial use. The BLM Sunstone Collection Area is a designated free collecting site.
National Forests
Collecting is allowed in Oregon's National Forests for personal use. Deschutes, Ochoco, and Malheur National Forests have productive collecting areas.
State Parks
Collecting is allowed on Oregon public beaches (below the vegetation line). Succor Creek State Natural Area allows collecting. Most other state parks prohibit collecting — check individual park rules.
Collection Limits
BLM: 25 lbs per day plus one specimen, not to exceed 250 lbs per year. Oregon beach agate collecting has no specific weight limit — reasonable personal quantities.
What's Protected
Crater Lake National Park, Oregon Caves National Monument, and John Day Fossil Beds National Monument prohibit all collecting. Vertebrate fossils on federal land require a permit.
Oregon has the best free rockhounding access in the Pacific Northwest. The BLM sunstone area, Succor Creek, and public beaches are all excellent free sites. Eastern Oregon is high desert — hot and dry in summer, cold in winter. Carry extra water and fuel. The Oregon coast is productive year-round but peak agate collecting is after winter storms (November-March).
Official State Rocks, Minerals & Gems of Oregon
State Rock
Thunder Egg
State Gem
Oregon Sunstone
State Fossil
Metasequoia
Free BLM sunstone collecting area near Plush; thunder eggs found statewide.
Gear Checklist for Rock Hunting & Gem Mining in Oregon
What you need depends on the terrain and what you are collecting. Here is a general checklist for Oregon:
- Rock hammer (3 lb crack hammer for hard rock, geologist's pick for softer material)
- Safety glasses — required any time you swing a hammer
- Chisels — cold chisels for splitting seams and extracting crystals
- Bucket and bags — 5-gallon bucket, zip-lock bags for specimens
- GPS device or phone app — cell service is unreliable at most sites
- 1 gallon of water per person — minimum, more in summer
- Sturdy boots — ankle support for loose talus and mine tailings
- Field guide — a regional mineral identification guide for Oregon
Always respect private property, follow Leave No Trace principles, and check current regulations before collecting. On BLM land, the general rule is 25 lbs per day plus one specimen for personal, non-commercial use.
Best Rockhounding Sites in Oregon
The standout collecting sites in Oregon, each with a full field guide — what you'll find, how to get there, and the rules on the ground.
- Antelope
Antelope is a tiny, historic stage-stop town in Wasco County, Oregon — better known today for its 1980s Rajneesh movement history than for mining — but regional rockhounding sources do list "close to the town of Antelope" among central Oregon's agate-hunting areas. This puts it in the broader central Oregon high-desert belt that produces agate, jasper, and thundereggs out of Tertiary rhyolite ash-flow deposits (the same geologic family as the famous Priday/Richardson thunderegg beds near Madras, though those are a separate, distant site).
- Ashwood
Ashwood is a near-ghost-town in Jefferson County, Oregon, and the namesake of some of the state's most famous thunderegg country — thundereggs are Oregon's official state rock, and this stretch of Central Oregon rhyolite country is where a huge share of the collectible material has come from historically. The catch: the two best-known operations near Ashwood, the original Priday Ranch beds and Richardson's Rock Ranch (home of the Priday Agate Beds brand), have both moved away from public digging in recent years.
- Beach Area Florence
The Oregon coast around Florence is a well-known agate and jasper hunting stretch. Under Oregon's Beach Bill, the entire ocean shore is public land up to the vegetation line, so access itself isn't the obstacle — knowing where and when to look is.
- Brogan
Brogan is a small unincorporated community on US Route 26 in Malheur County, in Oregon's high-desert rockhounding country [1]. The broader Malheur/Owyhee region is genuinely rich in agate, jasper, chalcedony, and petrified wood on BLM land, with well-known named sites like Succor Creek Canyon, Graveyard Point, and Beulah Reservoir [2].
- Ironside and Malheur Reservoir
S. Route 26 near the tiny community of Ironside.
- Lakeview
"Lakeview" in this database is a search-demand pin, not one specific site. Lakeview is a town in Oregon's high desert Lake County, and it functions as the access hub for several real, separately named collecting areas nearby — it isn't itself a mine or outcrop.
- Mt. Pisgah
[1] Our own database doesn't classify this entry as "Public Access" the way it does most other locations in this batch, and that hedge looks right: we found nothing confirming that rock or mineral collecting is actually permitted within the arboretum/park boundary itself. What is well established regionally is that the gravel bars of the Willamette River system nearby produce agate and jasper, and the area's Eocene-to-Oligocene basalts are the right kind of rock to host zeolites like the heulandite and mesolite in our specimen list.
- N Umpqua River
The North Umpqua River cuts through Douglas County, Oregon, carrying agate, chalcedony, carnelian, and jasper down out of the Cascade Mountains as it goes [1]. Like a lot of Oregon's inland rivers, its gravel beds pick up mineral material eroded from upstream volcanic deposits, and collectors work the river's gravel bars along both the North and South forks of the Umpqua [1].
- Shirttail Creek
Shirttail Creek, in Baker County near the small community of Durkee in eastern Oregon, is one of only two documented Oregon jade locations named in current rockhounding references — a genuinely rare specimen for the state. Beyond that, verifiable detail is thin.
- Streams around Oregon Caves
Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve, in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, sits in a region long known for placer gold and colorful jasper and agate in its surrounding creek drainages — this is the same general country as the historically gold- and platinum-rich Illinois River tributaries. The monument itself formed in marble and is managed for cave and karst preservation, not mineral collecting; the "streams around" framing in this listing points to the broader Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest drainages nearby, not the cave or its immediate springs.
What You Can Find in Oregon
Dedicated maps for every mineral with 3+ documented sites in Oregon:
Rockhounding clubs in Oregon
Connect with a local gem and mineral society — meetings, field trips, lapidary workshops, and annual shows.
Browse Oregon clubs →Explore Nearby States
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there an Oregon rockhounding map?
Yes — the interactive map above shows 682 documented Oregon locations, filterable by mineral and land type, covering the Ochoco thunderegg beds, Glass Buttes, the Lake County sunstone country, the Owyhee canyons, and the coast’s agate beaches. It replaces the out-of-print paper maps most people are searching for, and every site links to its own detail page with what’s found there.
What is the best rockhounding in Oregon?
Oregon is the best rockhounding state in the country, and four trips prove it: free obsidian in every variety at Glass Buttes, thundereggs at Richardson’s Rock Ranch or free in the Ochocos at White Rock Springs, Oregon sunstone in the Lake County desert, and winter agates on the coast beaches at Florence. Each is a different landscape and a different material — and that’s before the Owyhee canyons or the limb casts of the Crooked River.
Where can you find Oregon sunstones?
The Lake County high desert north of Plush. The BLM maintains a free public sunstone collecting area there, and fee mines like the Spectrum Sunstone Mine dig fresh ore for paying visitors — that’s where the large gem-grade red and green stones come from. The Lakeview area is also documented for sunstone along with agate, jasper, and geodes. Sunstone is Oregon’s state gemstone, a copper-bearing labradorite found nowhere else in this form.
Where can you find opal in Oregon?
For free: the west side of Warner Peak in the Hart Mountain country and the Ochoco beds around White Rock Springs are both documented for opal — mostly common opal and hyalite in volcanic settings, along with thundereggs whose centers are often opal-filled. Opal Butte in Morrow County is the famous hyalite locality. Filter the map above by opal to see every documented occurrence.
What gems, minerals, and crystals can I find in Oregon?
Oregon has 139 documented specimen types, including Gold, Copper, Silver, Malachite, Chrysocolla. Use the interactive map above to filter by specimen and see exactly which minerals are reported at each location.
How many rockhounding sites are mapped in Oregon?
We have 682 rockhounding sites mapped in Oregon with GPS coordinates, access info, and community-reported finds. New locations are added regularly through community submissions.
When is the best time to go crystal hunting in Oregon?
Summer and early fall are best for rockhounding in Oregon, as winter conditions may limit access to some locations. Always check current weather and road conditions before heading out, especially for remote collecting sites.
Where can I go gem mining in Oregon?
Oregon has 682 mapped locations for gem mining, rock hunting, and mineral collecting. Use the interactive map above to filter by specimen type or location type. Paid dig sites offer a guided experience with tools provided, while public access sites on BLM and Forest Service land are free.
Is rock hunting legal on public land in Oregon?
Casual rock hunting and mineral collecting is generally allowed on BLM and National Forest land in Oregon for personal, non-commercial use. The standard BLM limit is 25 lbs per day plus one specimen, not to exceed 250 lbs per year. Always verify regulations for specific sites — national parks, monuments, and some state parks prohibit collecting. See the laws section above for Oregon-specific rules.
What tools do I need for rockhounding in Oregon?
Essential rockhounding tools include a rock hammer, safety glasses, chisels, a 5-gallon bucket, zip-lock bags for specimens, a GPS device or phone app, sturdy boots, and a field guide. For Oregon specifically, check the gear checklist section above for terrain-specific recommendations.
⚠️ Always verify current regulations, weather conditions, and access requirements before visiting any location. Information provided is based on community submissions and may not be current or accurate.
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From our outdoor network — more ways to explore the state.