Where to Find Jasper in California
California jasper concentrates in the Mojave Desert and along the central coast. The Wiley's Well district in Riverside County yields red, brecciated, and plume jasper near the Hauser geode beds, and the Cady Mountains in San Bernardino County add picture jasper and brown landscape patterns. Stoddard Wells north of Victorville produces orbicular and brecciated jasper in fault zones. Along the coast, Big Sur in Monterey County yields the Marin/Cambria red-and-brown landscape jasper, often beach-tumbled. Most desert jasper is exposed as float in dry washes; coast jasper concentrates after winter storms.
Spot list checked against source data on April 1, 2026.
Map of 17 jasper collecting spots in California
Standout jasper spots in California
Hand-picked from the full list below, with the reason each one earns a trip.
Jacolitos Canyon
Fresno County County
Jacolitos Canyon adds a Coast Range sedimentary and fossil-bearing locality to a list otherwise dominated by volcanic glass, agate, jade, and gold. USGS work on the Coalinga district documents the Jacalitos fossil context, while the candidate record makes the site useful for jasper, petrified wood, and fossilized coral on lawful public ground.
El Paso Mountains
Kern County County
The El Paso Mountains stand out because BLM identifies the area as a place where rock hounds find material among dark volcanic mesas, red buttes, and fossil-bearing badlands. Mindat ties the range and its Last Chance Canyon localities to agate-jasper, opal, gold, and petrified wood, a compact record of Mojave volcanic and sedimentary collecting.
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.
Afton Canyon
San Bernardino County County
Afton Canyon pairs documented BLM rockhounding access with a strong Mojave silica suite: Mindat lists opal, opalite, chalcedony, plume agate, agate-jasper, petrified wood, and jasper in the canyon area. The locality also has unusual field context because the Mojave River flows above ground here year-round, cutting through one of the region's more recognizable volcanic and sedimentary exposures.
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 jasper in California
Ranked by the number of mapped jasper spots. County links open the full rockhounding page for that county.
Every jasper spot we track in California
Sorted by county. Coordinates open in Google Maps.
Before you go
Read the jasper identification guide so you know what a keeper looks like in the field: Jasper in the encyclopedia.
Jasper in California FAQ
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Where else to find jasper
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Hunt jasper in California with the map in your pocket
RockHoundR puts these spots on an offline map with BLM and Forest Service overlays, geology layers, and a log for your finds.
