Updated July 2026
17 mapped spots for rock hunting and rock collecting across 11 counties. Louisiana rockhounding is gravel bars: agate, carnelian, jasper, and petrified palm wood in the Amite, Tangipahoa, Pearl, Ouachita, and Sabine river gravels and the pits of the Florida Parishes, plus Louisiana opal in the Catahoula sandstone near Leesville and Kisatchie National Forest ground around Pollock that allows hand collecting.
The best rockhounding in Louisiana is at Ouachita River in Ouachita Parish (agate, petrified wood), Pollock in Grant Parish (agate, petrified wood), and Rapides Parish in Grant Parish (silicified palm wood). In total, 17 mapped collecting spots across 11 counties produce agate, petrified wood, and carnelian, each listed below with its land access.
Best spotOuachita RiverOuachita Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Agate, Petrified Wood, Opalized Wood
Best spotPollockGrant Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Agate, Petrified Wood
Best spotAmite River ValleyEast Baton Rouge Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Agate
Best spotEast & West Feliciana ParishesEast Feliciana Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Agate
Best spotLeesville (opal area)Vernon Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Louisiana Opal
Best spotOld Pearl RiverSt. Tammany Parish, LouisianaPermission required · Agate
Best spotRapides ParishGrant Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Silicified Palm Wood
Best spotTangipahoa River & StreamsTangipahoa Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Agate
Best spotToledo BendSabine Parish, LouisianaPermission required · Petrified Palm Wood
Best spotVernon ParishVernon Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Silicified Palm Wood
Baton RougeLivingston Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Agate
Bogue Chitto RiverSt. Tammany Parish, LouisianaPermission required · AgateLake ChienTerrebonne Parish, LouisianaPublic access · LapearliteLeesvilleVernon Parish, LouisianaPublic access · Petrified WoodLivingston ParishLivingston Parish, LouisianaPublic access · CarnelianSabine Lake Public Oyster AreaCameron Parish, LouisianaPublic access · LapearliteTangipahoa ParishTangipahoa Parish, LouisianaPublic access · CarnelianRepresentative spot and material photos from locations in this state, shown where verified public image records are available.
Counts reflect how many spots in this list mention each mineral.
Notable areas: Amite and Tangipahoa river agate and carnelian, Catahoula petrified palm wood, Leesville Louisiana opal, and Ouachita River novaculite are the Louisiana targets collectors travel for.
Louisiana has almost no bedrock at the surface, so its collecting comes from gravel. The Pliocene and Pleistocene Citronelle Formation and younger terrace gravels across the Florida Parishes and central Louisiana were washed down from the Appalachians and the Ouachitas and carry agate, banded and moss agate, carnelian, jasper, chert, and petrified wood, which the Amite, Tangipahoa, Tickfaw, and Pearl rivers rework into bars and gravel companies mine around Amite and Livingston. The Oligocene and Miocene Catahoula Formation in Vernon, Grant, Rapides, and Sabine parishes is volcanic-ash-rich sandstone that silicified palm trunks into the state fossil, petrified palmwood, and near Leesville grew the precious and common opal that is Louisiana opal. The Ouachita River gravels in the north carry Arkansas novaculite and quartz, and the Sabine River and Toledo Bend shore add agate and petrified wood from the Texas side.
Agate, carnelian, jasper, and petrified wood on the Amite, Tangipahoa, and Old Pearl river bars and in gravel pits with the operator's permission. Public bars below the high-water line are open on navigable rivers.
Petrified palm wood and agate around Pollock and Rapides Parish on Kisatchie National Forest ground, Louisiana opal near Leesville on private land, and Toledo Bend shoreline gravel.
Quartz, novaculite, agate, and petrified wood on Ouachita River bars around Monroe at public accesses and low water.
Beach agate and shell on the Cameron Parish beaches and occasional gravel finds in the marsh parishes; surface picking only.
Late summer and fall low water, August through November, exposes the gravel bars; winter fronts drop the rivers too. Spring floods rebuild the bars but make them unreachable. Summer is hot, humid, and buggy; go at dawn. Kisatchie is pleasant from October to April.
Knee boots or water shoes, a garden rake, a small screen, a spray bottle, and a bucket for gravel bars; a hand lens for opal and agate; sun protection and insect repellent. Watch for alligators and water moccasins on riverbanks.
Louisiana opal was discovered near Leesville in the late 1970s and briefly mined; the deposit is now private and largely worked out. Petrified palmwood became the state fossil in 1976, agate the state mineral in 2011, and the cabochon-cut oyster shell called Lapearlite the state gemstone the same year.
Day-trip range. Each section lists the closest mapped rockhounding spots within about 150 miles of the city. Most are inside a 2 to 3 hour drive.
6 closest spots to New Orleans, LA.
6 closest spots to Baton Rouge, LA.
6 closest spots to Shreveport, LA.
Geology rarely respects state borders. These states share mapped rockhounding country with Louisiana, useful when Louisiana is the start, not the whole trip. Each card links to the closest county across the line.
County pages are linked once we have at least 3 mapped spots for a focused guide with coordinates, mineral notes, and nearby spots.
Hand-picked standouts from the Louisiana list, chosen for unusual mineralogy, documented public access, or both. Each card links to coordinates, access notes, and what to look for.
Top pickOuachita Parish
The Ouachita River carries agate, petrified wood, and opalized wood south out of the Arkansas uplands, dropping them on gravel bars around Monroe in north Louisiana.
Agate, Petrified Wood, Opalized Wood
Top pickGrant Parish
The gravel-capped Kisatchie Hills around Pollock shed agate, jasper, and petrified wood, including palmwood, into the road cuts and creek bottoms of the Catahoula Ranger District.
Agate, Petrified Wood
Top pickGrant Parish
This is the heart of Louisiana's petrified palmwood country, the silicified state fossil that weathers out of the Oligocene Catahoula Formation across Rapides and Grant parishes.
Silicified Palm Wood
Top pickVernon Parish
Vernon Parish is one of the four parishes, with Rapides, Grant, and Natchitoches, that produce Louisiana's petrified palmwood, and its Catahoula gravels are a reliable source of the spotted, rod-structured fossil wood.
Silicified Palm Wood
Top pickTangipahoa Parish
The Tangipahoa River near Amite City draws agate, carnelian, and jasper from the same Citronelle gravel belt that feeds the Amite, and its LA 16 crossing is a long-known access point for collectors.
Agate
Top pickEast Baton Rouge Parish
The Amite River near Baton Rouge is Louisiana's most productive agate locality, its gravel bars carrying banded agate, carnelian, jasper, and even the rare local opal.
Agate
Top pickEast Feliciana Parish
The Feliciana parishes sit on some of Louisiana's best exposures of the gravel-rich Citronelle Formation, the source rock for the state's agate and carnelian.
Agate
Top pickSabine Parish
Toledo Bend, straddling the Sabine River on the Texas line, is the single best-known name for petrified palmwood, a stone shared as the Louisiana state fossil and the Texas state stone.
Petrified Palm Wood
Top pickVernon Parish
The Leesville area is the classic source of so-called Louisiana opal, wood that has been replaced by common opal rather than agate, giving a waxy translucent stone unusual for the state.
Louisiana Opal
Top pickSt. Tammany Parish
The Pearl River system on Louisiana's eastern edge reworks Citronelle gravels into agate, carnelian, and petrified wood, giving the southeastern Florida Parishes their own collecting water.
Agate
3 clubs in Louisiana. Clubs run field trips, shows and workshops, and many trips go to private claims you can't reach alone.
Open the RockHoundR app to see Louisiana on a real map with public land overlays, weather, geology, and your saved finds.
