The Seven Springs area, north of Cave Creek/Carefree, Maricopa Co., AZ, is a broad collecting district reached via Cave Creek Road/FR 24, with Seven Springs lying about 18-19 miles north of Carefree. The area is well known to collectors as a source of Cave Creek Jasper & has been collected since at least the early 1950s. One of the best-known lapidary materials from the district, Cave Creek Jasper is a colorful poppy jasper showing bright orange-red→red jasper commonly intermixed with chalcedony, quartz, & silica-rich hematite. Patterns may include orbs & angular jasper clasts set in a white quartz &/or chalcedony matrix, commonly with black hematite. Once-productive ground near the road & other easily accessible areas has been heavily worked, & much of that easily reached material has long since been collected. Good material may still be found, but generally requires searching well away from the road & the most accessible ground. Geologically, the area lies within a Precambrian Fe-rich silica-bearing metamorphic-volcanic assemblage, with jasper occurring as interbedded or lensoidal bodies within that broader rock sequence. A second geologic component of the Seven Springs district is vesicular→amygdaloidal basalt. Regional Arizona mapping indicates that vesicular basalt is common in the Tonto / Cave Creek area, with vesicles commonly containing zeolite ± calcite amygdules.

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