It's happened again, another big find at Arkansas' Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro. Rhonda Bankston from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw a segment about the park on The Travel Channel’s “The Best Places to Find Cash and Treasures.” So, she and a friend decided to head out to camp at the park and give diamond hunting there a try..
On Sunday, around 11:00 a.m. on her second day of prospecting in the park’s 37 ½-acre search area, Bankston found a stunning, what appears to be flawless 2.09-carat white diamond as she was surface searching over the plowed field. The field is the eroded surface of the world’s eighth largest diamond-bearing deposit in surface area. She found the gem near a sign that marks the spot where the 40.23-carat Uncle Sam diamond, the largest diamond ever unearthed in the U.S., was found back in 1924. After her gem is appraised, Bankston will decide whether to keep the diamond or sell it. Shaped somewhat like, and about the size of, a tooth, her sparkling white diamond looks like a frosted ice cube.
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Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world’s only diamond-producing site open to the public. Diamonds come in all colors of the rainbow. The three most common colors found at the park are white, brown and yellow, in that order. The park staff provides free identification and certification of diamonds. Park interpretive programs and exhibits explain the site’s geology and history and offer tips on recognizing diamonds in the rough. In total, over 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed at Arkansas’s diamond site since the first diamonds found in 1906 by John Huddleston, the farmer who at that time owned the land, long before the site became an Arkansas state park. The largest diamond ever discovered in the United States was unearthed here in 1924 during an early mining operation. Named the Uncle Sam, this white diamond with a pink cast weighed 40.23 carats. Other semi-precious gems and minerals found at the Crater of Diamonds include amethyst, garnet, peridot, jasper, agate, calcite, barite and quartz. Over 40 different rocks and minerals are unearthed at the Crater making it a rock hound's delight.
A fairly nice .24 ct yellow Diamond found at the Arkansas Diamond Mines..
Crater of Diamonds State Park is located two miles southeast of Murfreesboro. It is one of the 52 state parks administered by the State Parks Division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.
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The above two rocks, when located, tell you that you may be in Diamond Fields. Lamproite, on the left, contains small Diamond flecks but when associated closely to deposites of Kimberlite, on the right, in the same field, chances of larger Diamond finds are possible. Both of the above pieces were acquired by this writer during a visit to the same Arkansas Diamond Fields as the newest find. Sadly no Diamonds were found during that visit.
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Parts of this article from announcement by KARK Chnl 4 News
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