WA rockhounds search for Earth's hidden gems, treasures

BURIEN - Shell Hallahan wiggles a finger under a golfball-size rock and gently pries it from the wet sand.

Scanning the gravel beach of Seahurst Park in Burien during low tide on a recent sunny Friday, Hallahan was on the prowl for nubs of honey-colored agates. They're kind of like unicorns," she said. When held to the sun, agates appear to glow, revealing delicate bands like tree rings.

But this one isn't agate. Brushing it off, Hallahan still admires the striped hunk of brownish jasper. "Sometimes a pretty rock is just a pretty rock," she said.

The search continues. If they were easy to find, it wouldn't be as fun.

"You never know when you're going to find a jewel," she said.

For geology wonks and amateur collectors of minerals and fossils, Washington offers a jackpot of dazzling treasures that tell the story of Earth's mighty history.

You won't find jewelry-grade rubies and sapphires here. But for so-called rockhounds, there's plenty to sniff out: orange-y red carnelians, lavender-tipped amethyst crystals, "Ellensburg Blue" agates.

Some rockhounds relish the hobby as an opportunity to get out into nature and reconnect with the planet. Others enjoy the camaraderie and tight knit community rockhounding provides, as enthusiasts from different backgrounds swap tales and share finds.

"It's about the people, as much as anything," said Susan Gardner, president of the North Seattle Lapidary and Mineral Club, who met her husband at the club.

For Nique Wicks, the draw is simple: "Pretty rocks, shiny things."

A heavy equipment operator, Wicks was at a job site a few years ago that had stunning quarry rocks come in - plates of quartz and calcite, blue seam agate, purple amethyst. She'd drive around on her forklift after the rain and pick pieces up, the minerals sparkling.

She was hooked, and in 2018 joined the Marysville Rock and Gem Club.

"It's amazing some of the things people have pulled out of the earth," Wicks said.

Now Wicks serves as wagon master for the Washington State Mineral Council, taking over the job after longtime leader Ed Lehman recently retired. As the title suggests, she shepherds beginners and veterans alike on field trips across the state.

Last month she led a group of rockhounds to scour the banks of a creek near Money Creek Campground for picture jasper, rocks patterned with wavy lines of brown, black or blue that can look like miniature landscape paintings of tree-dotted hills or frothy shores.

With a keen eye, a bucket and a couple of tools, rockhounds can find a remarkable variety of minerals and fossils here, she said.

Near Little Naches Campground are blue-gray thunder eggs, geodelike rocks formed in the gas pockets of cooling silica-rich lava flows. It's fun to look for clear crystal points at Hansen Creek, though it can be a messy, dangerous endeavor, Wicks said. Wild Turkey Mine in Eastern Washington offers easy and accessible digs for green noble serpentine. Petrified wood, ancient waterlogged trees that crystallized after being entombed in basalt, can be seen at Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park and across the state. There's Dalmatian stone on Blanchard Hill, with rewarding water views from Samish Overlook nearby. "Only thing about that, it's hard rock mining, so it's heavy chisels and sledgehammers and prybars. It's a workout," Wicks said.

Finding interesting things to dig up in Washington isn't hard. But for novices, knowing where to start can be a little daunting.

"Half the battle of being a new rockhound is knowing where to go, what to look for and what tools to use to get the rocks," Wicks said.

That's one reason she, like many others, recommends anyone interested in rockhounding join a local rock club field trip first. Club members can help ensure participants have the right gear and are searching in safe spots where rockhounding is allowed.

While collecting a reasonable amount of fossils and rocks for personal use is generally allowed on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, it's illegal to take anything from national parks or tribal lands. For private properties or areas under mining claims, you need the owner's permission.

Any self-respecting rockhound will follow the "code of ethics" when collecting, Wicks said, but a few give the community a bad rap, leaving behind trash, digging holes under live trees, trespassing on private property or taking far too many rocks home. "We try to discourage all of that," she said.

One of Kim Villines' favorite annual rockhounding trips, hosted by the East King County Rock Club, is a summertime excursion digging for garnets near Heather Lake. People of all ages splash around a nearby river searching for the gem, tiny dried currants exposed and battered by the water.

"The kids love it," said Villines, who serves as the rock club's vice president. "It's nice to see that flicker in their eyes when they get so excited about something they've never seen before."

While beginners and kids are welcomed on some field trips, Villines said, rockhounding can be physically demanding, and potentially hazardous, work. Collectors scramble up mountains, dig out holes, scrape off cliffs, hunch over streams, crack open stones - then haul it all back home. It takes patience, perseverance and a little bit of luck.

Since most of the rocks she looks for are covered in dirt, Villines said she often goes by the sound.

Agates and jasper will produce a high-pitched ping when struck with a chisel, she said. Rocks that aren't worth the trouble might produce a low-pitched thud. Those are called "Leaverites, as in ‘Leave 'er right there,' " as the old rockhounding joke goes, Villines said.

Still, she said, you can't judge a book by its cover. "Mother Nature shows us every day: You'll see a rock, it looks like nothing, and then you cut it open or you polish it up, and it's gorgeous."

What do rockhounds do with their earthly riches? Some rinse them off and put them in bowls like gemmy fruits, or build elaborate rock gardens in their backyards. Some give away rocks to friends and family.

Others might try to pretty-up their finds, slicing them up or polishing them. Entrepreneurial types might sell their wares, in some cases fashioning them into pendants for jewelry.

But for many, the thrill is the hunt. It taps into something deeply primal and sublime.

"When you're finding something on the beach or digging for something in the dirt, you might be the first person to really see it," said Jean Shaffer, who joined the North Seattle Lapidary and Mineral Club more than 20 years ago.

Formed in darkness, these rocks are secrets shaped over eternities, a testament to Earth's awesome power and raw beauty. The scale of forces and time that forged Washington's rocks is almost impossible to grasp.

Roughly 200 million years ago, long before Seattle and most of Washington existed, when the western edge of ancestral North America ended near modern-day Pullman and Spokane, the supercontinent of Pangaea, surrounded by a vast ocean dotted with volcanic islands, begins to break apart.

Slowly, inevitably, North America moves west. It slams into those islands like a Buick colliding with a moose, according to Nick Zentner, a geology professor at Central Washington University: "We just keep driving down the highway with this moose on our grill, and then here comes another moose. Eventually, these smooshed terranes will form the "fruitcake" of materials under Washington, Zentner said.

More time passes. An oceanic tectonic plate dives eastward beneath the Pacific Northwest, generating hot magmas that will create the elegant line of volcanoes and mountains known now as the Cascades. Deep cracks near Idaho open, flooding the Columbia Basin with runny orange lava and burying whole forests. A massive ice sheet creeps down from Canada, bulldozing its way south, gouging out Puget Sound and bringing with it other new rocks.

Heat, pressure, ice, tectonic forces, mineral-rich waters: A remarkable balance of chemistry, chance and the right conditions over millions of years created an amazing mosaic of ancient rocks scattered across our mountains and washing up on our shores.

By comparison, humans are "just a blip" in the life of rocks, Villines said. It's humbling.

"Who knows what's forming on the planet now?" she said. "Eventually it'll come up to the surface and expose all of its beauties."

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This story was originally published April 26, 2026 at 6:54 AM.