Crater of Diamonds State Park

We tried our hands at being prospectors at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. https://www.arkansasstateparks.com/parks/crater-diamonds-state-park

This park is the only diamond producing mine in the US and the only diamond mine in the world where the public has access to mine for diamonds in their original volcanic source with the “ finders, keepers” rule in play. For an entrance fee of $10 each we were given carte blanche access to the 37 1/2 acres of plowed diamond mine fields, a water station to wet sift the dirt for gems and a park employee to examine and educate us as to what we found.

It rained the day before ( which is ideal for diamond mining), We looked for “surface finds”, dug up 3 buckets of dirt that looked promising, and performed “wet sifting” on our buckets of mud. We found 3 possible diamond specimens. We cleaned up at the very effective wash station ( a diamond miner’s life is a dirty one…). We took our finds, along with our "precious gem" hopes and dreams, to the Discovery Center for verification of what we unearthed. The very smart and super nice park staff quickly squashed our dreams but let us know we found quartz ,calcite and volcanic tuff. We left rich in new- found knowledge and some really cool looking rocks!