Where to Find Garnet

Franklin, North Carolina: the Southeast's gem valley

Franklin calls itself the gem capital of the world, and garnet is a big reason. The Cowee Valley north of town hosts a string of fee mines where buckets of native gravel produce rhodolite (the raspberry-pink garnet first named from this district), almandine, and the occasional sapphire. Around the fee operations, creeks draining Mason Mountain and the surrounding schist belts carry garnet for free-range gravel washers.

North Carolina holds the deepest garnet spot list in our dataset, and the wider Southeast continues the habit: Georgia's piedmont, Virginia's Blue Ridge streams, and Alabama's east-central schist belt all produce almandine in creek gravels.

• Garnet in North CarolinaCowee Valley fee mines near Franklin plus garnet-bearing creeks statewide.See North Carolina spots →
• Garnet in GeorgiaPiedmont schist belts with almandine in creek gravel.See Georgia spots →
• Garnet in VirginiaBlue Ridge and piedmont streams carrying almandine and kyanite.See Virginia spots →
• Garnet in AlabamaEast-central schist belt garnets in creek gravels.See Alabama spots →

Idaho star garnets and the northern Rockies

Idaho's panhandle hides the rarest garnet experience in the country: star garnets, almandine with silk inclusions that flash four or six-rayed stars when cut, found in quantity almost nowhere else on Earth outside India. The Emerald Creek Garnet Area near St. Maries is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, which sells day permits to dig and screen the garnet-bearing gravels; the star garnet is Idaho's state gemstone.

Montana continues the theme with alluvial garnets in the Ruby River and Alder Gulch gravels near Virginia City, often recovered alongside sapphires at the region's fee washing plants. New Mexico and Arizona add pyrope, the fiery red 'ant hill garnet' that harvester ants carry to the surface on the Colorado Plateau, though much of that ground is tribal land requiring permission.

• Garnet in IdahoEmerald Creek star garnets on a Forest Service day permit; the state gemstone.See Idaho spots →
• Garnet in MontanaRuby River and Alder Gulch gravels, garnets alongside sapphires.See Montana spots →
• Garnet in New MexicoPyrope localities on the Colorado Plateau's southern edge.See New Mexico spots →

New England schist and pegmatite country

The metamorphic spine of New England is loaded with almandine. Connecticut made garnet its state mineral on the strength of localities like the historic Green's Farm garnet mine in Roxbury, and Maine's pegmatite districts produce garnet alongside tourmaline and smoky quartz. Maryland and the lower Hudson Valley continue the schist-belt habit south, and New York's Gore Mountain in the Adirondacks, home of the Barton garnet mine, supplies the deep-red crystals that made garnet New York's state gemstone.

• Garnet in MainePegmatite country garnets with tourmaline and quartz in the Oxford Hills.See Maine spots →
• Garnet in ConnecticutGarnet is the state mineral; Roxbury's historic mine anchors the tradition.See Connecticut spots →
• Garnet in MarylandPiedmont schist creeks with small almandine crystals.See Maryland spots →