Where to Find Chalcedony in California
California chalcedony shows up in the desert agate districts and along the coast. The Mojave fields (Wiley's Well, Cady Mountains, Lavic) yield blue, white, and pink chalcedony in basalt and rhyolite. The San Diego County pegmatite belt produces chalcedony in association with tourmaline at the Himalaya and Stewart mines. Coast chalcedony turns up at Agate Beach in Marin County and Jade Cove in Monterey County as tide-tumbled pebbles. Smaller showings of dendritic and moss chalcedony occur in the Coso Range and the Argus Mountains. Field specimens clean up with a quick rinse in mild acid to remove desert caliche.
Spot list checked against source data on April 1, 2026.
Map of 12 chalcedony collecting spots in California
Standout chalcedony spots in California
Hand-picked from the full list below, with the reason each one earns a trip.
Gem Hill
Kern County County
Gem Hill is a focused Kern County silica locality, with Mindat recording agate, chalcedony, iris agate, jasper, petrified wood, native gold, and uranium minerals nearby. Its appeal is the Rosamond Hills mix of lapidary material and desert mineralization, but claim and parcel checks matter because the district has a long mining history.
Unnamed Location (Fire Agate)
Riverside County County
The Wiley Well and Mule Mountains area is one of California's best documented public desert collecting districts, with BLM specifically identifying the Wiley Well District Geode Beds for rockhounding. Mindat records nearby fire agate, chalcedony, agate, amethyst, quartz, and opal, giving the area more mineral range than a single-specimen stop.
Trinity River
Trinity County County
The Trinity River is a north-state benchmark because it combines historic placer-gold country with Klamath Mountains metamorphic and ultramafic source rocks. USGS mapping documents the basin's complex bedrock setting, while the RockHoundR candidate minerals add chalcedony, jasper, jade, and petrified wood to the river's placer-gold identity.
Best counties for chalcedony in California
Ranked by the number of mapped chalcedony spots. County links open the full rockhounding page for that county.
Every chalcedony spot we track in California
Sorted by county. Coordinates open in Google Maps.
Before you go
Read the chalcedony identification guide so you know what a keeper looks like in the field: Chalcedony in the encyclopedia.
