We visited Arkansas and stopped at the only diamond mine in the U.S. – Crater of Diamonds in Murfreesboro, AR.  It’s located on a state park and anyone can rent a shovel and screen and dig for diamonds!  You get to keep any that you find.

It’s a volcano crater actually.  It’s fairly level and gets plowed periodically to turn over the earth for the diggers. When we were there lots of other people were there as well, some with rented equipment like we had, some with wheelbarrows and equipment they owned.

It’s fairly easy – you can either walk around and look at the rocks and dirt laying on the ground…surprisingly some of the largest diamonds were found that way!  Or you can dig in the dry dirt, sifting the dirt through the screen.  Or you can take a bucket of dirt to a washing station where you submerge a screen-full at a time into a trough of water to get rid of the fine dirt and also wash dirt from the stones, and then sift through the wet dirt.

We worked at it for a few hours but didn’t find any diamonds, just some quartz, mica, and other stuff.  Just a few months a kid walking around found a 7-carat diamond!

Anyway, we had fun.  Here are some pictures: