April 9, 2019
Today we woke up and headed to the diamond crater. The pollen in the air is crazy thick. How appropriate that an artists drew our plans for the day in the pollen on the van window (thanks Jeremiah!).
The mine is the only remaining public diamond mine in the US. Crater of Diamonds State Park used to be a private mine that was purchased to be a state park. Visitors find about 600 diamonds here every year. They till the field monthly and keep record of the diamonds found. Signs say it is the 8th largest diamond reserve in the world.
It had rained the previous day which is good as the rainwater washes the dirt off the diamonds. There are 37 acres to mine in.
There are various kinds of rocks to be found here….everyone wants the diamonds though. (0:
It was a sunny day which is advantageous because the sun shining on diamonds makes a bright sparkle. So we began by just walking up and down the rows.
Then we rented some of the tools for wet sifting.
You take your bucket and shovel and gather a bucketful of dirt from wherever you choose.
Then you put some dirt in the sifting boxes. There are two, the top one has larger holes to catch the big rocks and let the little ones fall through to the next one which has a smaller screen to catch the smaller rocks. These are the ones to look through to find a diamond.
A gentleman working at the table behind Jeremiah found a yellow diamond.
If you sift properly (they give a demonstration in the morning) the heavier small rocks concentrate into the middle of the gravel and the likelihood of a diamond would be seen there. You can see the more colorful rocks in a cluster in the middle of the pile of gravel.
Gotta look hard for a diamond.
Donald and Jedidiah did some wet sifting down at the creek. They built a little dam to hold the water up. When they were finished, Jed let the water go.
Since it had recently rained, the field was a little muddy in places.
Sadly we didn’t get filthy rich, just filthy. (0:
Afterwards you can show your collection of rocks to the people there and they identify what you found. We found mostly jasper and quartz.
Of course, the visit wouldn’t be complete without finding ninja obstacles.
We didn’t strike it rich, but we had a good time and worked on our suntans.