Newman Springs are on Soap Creek 15 miles (24 km) north of Clearlake Oaks.

The spring farthest downstream—which is the principal one—emerges at the creek side at the base of a prominent ledge of serpentine that forms the eastern border of a belt of this rock and the contact zone between it and crumpled shales and siliceous sediments that continue eastward.

The spring yields about 15 gallons a minute of mildly carbonated water 86° in temperature, that is turbid with iron.

The serpentine belt continues for about 100 yards upstream (westward) from it and is then succeeded by schistose rock, from which seepages and slight flows of warm carbonated water issue in at least seven places along a distance of about 275 yards or to a point about a quarter of a mile above the main spring.

This place is known locally as "Soap Creek," on account of borax being a prominent constituent in the water.