The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday, so I’m celebrating the best way I know how: with rocks, road trips, fun detours, and stories hidden in stone!
As I've traveled over the years, I've created two Google Maps layers that mark my favorite landmarks, hidden gems, hands-on adventures, random rock nerd shops, and awesome spots: one for mining and one for cool geology. Some of these spots I've visited, and some are still on my list of future must-sees. You can download my full mining and cool geology map layers here.
This Fourth of July week, I'm sharing a state-by-state list of some of what I consider the coolest geotourism stops around the country. This list is by no means comprehensive, and I fully expect you to message me on Instagram or email editorial@aapg.org if there is something I have missed!
Jessica Scanlan
Geologist and host of The Rock Record
@therockrecord_ig
A State-by-State Geo-Tourism Bucket List
Paint Mines Interpretive Park in Colorado, Photo by Adam Springer/Shutterstock.com
Alabama: The Wetumpka Impact Crater, which was created when a more than 1,100-foot asteroid struck a shallow subtropical sea near the ancient coastline.
Alaska: Kennecott Mines Historic Landmark, which is considered the best remaining example of early 20th-century copper mining.
Arizona: Meteor Crater Natural Landmark. This is one of the best-preserved impact sites on Earth.
Arkansas: Crater of Diamonds State Park. Ninety-five million years ago, a diatreme forced magma and diamonds from the Earth's mantle to the surface, and you can dig for them here!
California: Oceanview and Pala Chief Gem Mines. Dig for your own tourmalines in a famous district! (Learn more about Pala in my YouTube video!)
Colorado: Paint Mines Interpretive Park. A unique geological site featuring the kaleidoscopic landscape of the Dawson Arkose Formation.
Connecticut: Dinosaur State Park, which preserves one of the largest trackways on Earth, features more than 2,000 Early Jurassic dinosaur footprints.
Delaware: Alapocas Run State Park, which is filled with dramatic gorges and massive cliffs of Brandywine Blue Gneiss, a 470-million-year-old metamorphic rock.
Florida: Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park, a massive sinkhole exposing more than 100 feet of ancient rock layers.
Georgia: Stone Mountain, an immense pluton that formed deep underground about 300 million years ago during the Appalachian orogeny.
Hawaii: Papakōlea Beach. One of four green sand beaches in the world! (Learn more about white, black, and green beaches in Hawaii in my full YouTube video!)
Idaho: Teepee Rocks. As their name suggests, these are cone- or teepee-shaped rock formations made of tuff.
Illinois: Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. This is a museum with an immersive coal mine exhibit and tour.
Indiana: Hanging Rock National Natural Landmark, a 420-million-year-old fossilized coral reef.
Iowa: Fort Dodge Gypsum. An example of Jurassic Period Sedimentation, this remnant of a once vast rock layer offers clues to the climate of middle Mesozoic America.
Kansas: Strataca. This underground museum is in a salt mine and showcases the Hutchinson Salt Member.
Kentucky: Red River Gorge Geological Area, filled with sandstone canyons, rock shelters, and the highest concentration of natural arches east of the Mississippi River. (Check out all the cool things to do in my full YouTube video!)
Louisiana: Avery Island, a salt dome that provides the three key elements for Tabasco sauce (fertile soil for peppers, rock-salt mine for seasoning, and an elevated base for the factory).
Maine: Schoodic Point, which features 419-million-year-old pink Gouldsboro granite cut by striking, dark basalt, and diabase dikes.
Maryland: Great Falls Park. This park is home to the Mather Gorge, forged by the river cutting through the Piedmont Plateau into 750-million-year-old metamorphic rocks.
Massachusetts: Harvard Mineralogical Museum, the oldest university mineral collection in the United States.
Michigan: Adventure Mining Co. This company hosts a crazy adventure into a historic mine with native copper! (Check out my full YouTube video to learn more!)
Minnesota: Gooseberry Falls State Park. Really, the whole North Shore is worth a drive for its Midcontinent Rift geology.
Mississippi: ThePetrified Forest. Here, ancient stone logs originate from an Oligocene floodplain.
Missouri: Missouri Mines State Historic Site. This spot preserves Federal Mill No. 3, once the world's largest lead-processing facility.
Montana: Sapphires. Listen, to be fair to my home state, I couldn’t just choose one spot for sapphire hunting! But you can find your own. Try places like Spokane Bar and Gem Mountain!
Nebraska: Toadstool Geologic Park. The area features an “alien” badlands landscape formed by ancient river systems, volcanic ash deposits, and millions of years of intense wind and water erosion.
Nevada: Cathedral Gorge State Park. This place is home to badlands, towering spires, and narrow slot canyons formed by ancient and/or volcanic eruptions and shaped by a long-vanished freshwater lake.
New Hampshire: Flume Gorge, a narrow canyon formed roughly 200 million years ago when volcanic magma created vertical basalt dikes, which later eroded faster than the surrounding granite.
New Jersey: The Sterling Hill Mining Museum. This spot is an underground mine and offers tours with famous fluorescent minerals.
New Mexico: Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness features a world-renowned, fossil-rich geological landscape formed from Late Cretaceous to early Paleocene coastal rain forests, ancient swamps, and deltas.
New York: Herkimer Diamond Mines. Here, you can dig for your own clear, naturally faceted double-terminated quartz crystals!
North Carolina: Emerald Hollow Mine. This is the only emerald mine in the world open to the public for prospecting
North Dakota: South Killdeer Mountain. West Cenozoic Era Topographic Inversion, an unusual interplay of volcanic activity, uplift, and erosion, have, in effect, turned a lake inside out.
Ohio: Crystal Cave. This spot is literally a hidden gem. It's a massive celestite geode at a winery, filled with pale-blue crystals from eight to 18 inches long.
Oklahoma: Gloss Mountain State Park. This park is known for its red mesas and buttes capped with bright layers of gypsum.
Oregon: Smith Rock State Park. A haven for climbers and hikers, this park features towering cliffs and jagged spires composed of 30-million-year-old rhyolite tuff, which formed when the Crooked River Caldera collapsed.
Pennsylvania: Museum of Anthracite Mining. This museum preserves the history of hard coal mining, with a mine tour and steam train rides nearby.
Rhode Island: The smallest state is home to the site of the third-oldest lighthouse in North America, which you can visit via a trail along exposed bedrock and tide pools.
South Carolina: 40 Acre Rock Heritage Preserve. The name may say 40, but this site houses a 14-acre granitic flat-rock monadnock famous for its unique geology, vernal pools, and rare, fragile plant life.
South Dakota: Cathedral Spires, a collection of thin granite pillars, formed 1.7 billion years ago.
Tennessee: Cherokee Ruby & Sapphire Mine. This is a dig-your-own gem mine featuring rubies, sapphires, star garnets, and more!
Texas: Enchanted Rock, a massive pink granite pluton and exfoliation dome in the Llano Uplift of Central Texas.
Utah: Peekaboo/Red Slot Canyon. This spot is a Jurassic-era Navajo Sandstone carved into vibrant, winding passageways! (More on The Rock Record here!)
Vermont: Vermont Granite Museum. Visit an interactive museum dedicated to preserving the history, geology, technology, and artistry of the state's iconic granite industry.
Virginia: Natural Bridge State Park. This area is known for its 215-foot, bridge-shaped gorge, karst landscape, valley, and forest.
Washington: Ape Cave. This might sound like a part of the zoo, but it is the longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States (measuring 2.5 miles long).
Washington D.C.: The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (duh!) We all know this is a must-visit.
West Virginia: Nelson Rocks. These rocks are an outdoor adventure destination famous for their twin 800-foot Tuscarora Quartzite fins and Via Ferrata.
Wisconsin: The Apostle Islands. Formed from ancient, red quartz sandstone deposited during the late Precambrian era, Pleistocene glaciers eroded the land and left behind thick glacial till, creating the 22 distinctive islands we see today.
Wyoming: Wind River Canyon. This is a “superimposed stream,” exposing nearly 3 billion years of Earth's history in a single, 17-mile-long gorge.
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