At Crater of Diamonds State Park, ANY gems you dig up and find, you can take home!

Arkansas (U.S.)  —   Are you in the mood for a little digging? No? How about if your dig playground is full of diamonds you can pocket?

That’s what Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas is all about. Well, sure… there are more things to do there, but nothing that could potentially get you some hard-earned rock - that would be valuable rock you can sell for cash.

Crater of Diamond State Park is the only diamond producing site in the world that’s open to the public. For a small fee, you can search within the 37 1/2-acre crater for diamonds, gems or any other rocks and minerals that strike your fancy. What you find, you keep.

In fact, the park actually has a tag line of:

"The World’s Only Diamond Site Where You Can Search and Keep What You Find"

To make things easier, the crater is actually plowed occasionally to help your search.

A few interesting facts about Crater of Diamond State Park

Not everyone searching will find something valuable. That goes without saying. But the site, as described by The State Parks of Arkansas listing, is the 8th largest diamond-bearing deposit in surface area in the world.

Since it opened to the public as a park in 1972, visitors have discovered over 25,000 diamonds. Or, an average of two diamonds pulled from the ground every single day. Not bad!

It does seem like that average is going down, however. In 2006, a total of 488 diamonds were found. From January through September of 2007, only 101 have been discovered.

But there’s always hope! You might uncover a Big One… The largest diamond ever found in North American was found there in 1924. Named Uncle Sam, it weighed in at 40.23 carats or 8.046 g.

Two other famous and notables diamonds found that were over 10 carats include:

• Amarillo Starlight - 16.37 carats, discovered in 1975
• Star of Shreveport - 8.82 carats, discovered in 1956

Odds are, you won’t find diamonds of these sizes. Yet, in both 2006 and 2007, several diamonds were found coming in at over 2 carats.

The fee for diamond searching and park information

At the time of this writing, the cost to search for diamonds is:

Adults	$6.50
Children (ages 6 to 12)	$3.50
Children (under 6)	Free

You don’t necessarily need tools but they’re also available for rental. If you’re really interested, you’ll want to visit this page from the Crater of Diamonds State Park website. Here’s contact information as well:

209 State Park Road

Murfreesboro, AR 71958

Email: craterofdiamonds@arkansas.com)

(870) 285-3113

www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com

Good hunting!