As soon as we saw that Arkansas had a place where you could dig for your own diamonds and precious gems we knew we had to go and we had the chance to go, Jan. 21.
Crater of Diamonds State Park is located in Murfreesboro, Arkansas and is about an hour from where we are staying in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We checked out their website for information and it looked even more adorable than we could have imagined.
Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park is one of the only diamond-producing sites in the world where the public can search for diamonds in their original volcanic source. The policy here is “finders, keepers,” meaning the diamonds you find are yours to keep.
Visitors search for diamonds atop a 37 1/2-acre plowed field, the eroded surface of an ancient, diamond-bearing volcanic crater. Visitors access the diamond search area through the Diamond Discovery Center, an engaging interpretive center featuring exhibits and a pushbutton video kiosk that illustrates the three most popular methods of searching for diamonds. The park staff provides complimentary identification and registration of diamonds found at the park.
You can bring your own tools (nothing electric), or rent some there, but we brought our own. Make sure that you bring buckets to carry your finds, shovels or some hand tools to dig with, something that you can use to sift your rocks and dirt with, and clothes that you can get dirty in – you will be sitting in the dirt and likely walking in some mud.
We spent a few hours here digging in the dirt. I never thought I would do that. hahah! But, it was VERY fun. It was nice being out in the open, getting fresh air, and spending time away from electronics and screentime.
One of the best parts of the day was that after you have finished digging, and you have sorted your finds, you can take your gems to staff and they will help review your finds and identify some of the gemstones. It was super fun to learn about what we had found.
We ended up with mostly jasper – but in a variety of colors, citrine, quartz, volcanic rock, sandstone, lamproite, and volcanic tuff.
If you aren’t familiar, volcanic tuff is rock composed of solid volcanic ash that may contain particles of volcanic glass (vitro-clasts), small fragments of crystals formed in lava (crystal clasts) and/or fragments of volcanic rock and lava (lithoclasts).
We had such a great time going we are going to go again before we leave and we are going to start looking for other places around the country that we can dig for diamonds and gemstones. Who knows, maybe next time we will find a 30 ct. diamond! hahah!
Life with Mary and Jay 