Crater of Diamonds State Park
Hi Ho Hi Ho - It's off diamond hunting we go...
Digging for Diamonds
Diamond Sluice
Wow - now that's a B-I-G diamond!At one time Murray & I owned metal detectors and enjoyed our hobby of gold detecting, but we have never had the opportunity to go digging for diamonds. That is hardly surprising considering that there is only one diamond field in the world that allows the public to dig for diamonds – and it is right here in Arkansas! How amazing is that? Here at Crater of Diamonds State Park around 600 diamonds are found by the public every year. Fortunately for us, the park also has a campground (with electric & water hookups) that is connected to the diamond field via a 300 meter (.2 mile) leafy path through the woods. Bonus! We thought this was one experience we wanted to try. I contacted my daughter Kim (a geologist) to get the good oil on what to look for, and she provided well informed information.
We discovered we had 3 ways to search for diamonds today: surface hunting where you just walk along the ploughed field and look for a shining diamond, dry sift the dirt through a sieve or finally, use sieves in a wet sluice. We did the latter, although I left Murray to the sieving for a while and meandered around the fields with my trusty trowel, and had a dig here and there searching for an elusive shining diamond using the surface hunting method. For a very cheap entry fee of $6.50 per adult, you can spend from 8am-6pm hunting for diamonds to your heart’s content. Many people come back again and again, and arrive with their own tools, but the park also provides the tools of the trade (knee pad, bucket, shovel and special sieves) for a small fee. There are two sluice pavilions on the field. We couldn’t wait to fill our bucket with dirt that looked so promising. We excitedly sieved the dirt through two layered sieves as we swished them in the sluice. The diamonds are smaller and heavier than the residual rubble, so they fall through the bigger sieve to the smaller one underneath. A diamond weighing several carats may be no larger than a marble, so the smaller more commonly found diamonds are about the size of the head of a matchstick. It reminded me of our first foray into gold detecting…we went out to find our first nugget, expecting it to be the size of an egg, only to find the most commonly found ones are the size of half a fingernail! We live & learn.
Getting back to the diamond hunt...we had to keep swirling the sieve in the water at the same time as vibrating it up and down which forces the heavier diamonds to fall to the bottom of the sieve. We then upturned the sieve and voila, the diamonds should be on the top of the pile. Well, if you had a diamond in your dirt that is! We weren’t so lucky, and nor were any of those out digging today, but yesterday a half-carat diamond was found on the field. We may not have found a diamond, but we had fun trying and we enjoyed chatting with the Americans who came to try their luck. They came from all over, some from Alaska, another couple from Baton Rouge and folks from Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Missouri. We were grateful to have the opportunity to try something we had never done before. Just for fun, I went to Holly Hobby yesterday to buy some materials to make dream catchers (thanks Amanda) and I happened to see a 1 inch pink crystal in the shape of a diamond. I bought it and took it along today, planning to surprise Murray by hiding it in one of our sluices, but instead I used it as a joke with the other diggers. When they came up and asked if we had found anything, I would pull it out and first of all their eyes boggled, but then they realized it was a joke and we all laughed together. You will see my ‘diamond’ in some of the photos above – if you missed it, go back and see if you can pick it out! Tomorrow it is off to Lake Ouachita State Park and more adventures with Joe Bill & Sandy, and hopefully also get to catch up with Andrea, Jessica & Shelby.
We discovered we had 3 ways to search for diamonds today: surface hunting where you just walk along the ploughed field and look for a shining diamond, dry sift the dirt through a sieve or finally, use sieves in a wet sluice. We did the latter, although I left Murray to the sieving for a while and meandered around the fields with my trusty trowel, and had a dig here and there searching for an elusive shining diamond using the surface hunting method. For a very cheap entry fee of $6.50 per adult, you can spend from 8am-6pm hunting for diamonds to your heart’s content. Many people come back again and again, and arrive with their own tools, but the park also provides the tools of the trade (knee pad, bucket, shovel and special sieves) for a small fee. There are two sluice pavilions on the field. We couldn’t wait to fill our bucket with dirt that looked so promising. We excitedly sieved the dirt through two layered sieves as we swished them in the sluice. The diamonds are smaller and heavier than the residual rubble, so they fall through the bigger sieve to the smaller one underneath. A diamond weighing several carats may be no larger than a marble, so the smaller more commonly found diamonds are about the size of the head of a matchstick. It reminded me of our first foray into gold detecting…we went out to find our first nugget, expecting it to be the size of an egg, only to find the most commonly found ones are the size of half a fingernail! We live & learn.
Getting back to the diamond hunt...we had to keep swirling the sieve in the water at the same time as vibrating it up and down which forces the heavier diamonds to fall to the bottom of the sieve. We then upturned the sieve and voila, the diamonds should be on the top of the pile. Well, if you had a diamond in your dirt that is! We weren’t so lucky, and nor were any of those out digging today, but yesterday a half-carat diamond was found on the field. We may not have found a diamond, but we had fun trying and we enjoyed chatting with the Americans who came to try their luck. They came from all over, some from Alaska, another couple from Baton Rouge and folks from Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Missouri. We were grateful to have the opportunity to try something we had never done before. Just for fun, I went to Holly Hobby yesterday to buy some materials to make dream catchers (thanks Amanda) and I happened to see a 1 inch pink crystal in the shape of a diamond. I bought it and took it along today, planning to surprise Murray by hiding it in one of our sluices, but instead I used it as a joke with the other diggers. When they came up and asked if we had found anything, I would pull it out and first of all their eyes boggled, but then they realized it was a joke and we all laughed together. You will see my ‘diamond’ in some of the photos above – if you missed it, go back and see if you can pick it out! Tomorrow it is off to Lake Ouachita State Park and more adventures with Joe Bill & Sandy, and hopefully also get to catch up with Andrea, Jessica & Shelby.
Looks like fun, I have just paid a fortune to buy Celeste diamond ear-rings for her 18th!! If only I'd known you were out digging for them - I would have waited!
ReplyDeleteoooh stay there until you get me a good diamond Aunty Sha :)
ReplyDeleteHope you don't experience any of the bad weather (new orleans way) that we are hearing about.
Hope you are having a great weekend.
xx
Clairie
Trish and Murry,Loved going Diamond hunting with you as well as the lake and all the bueatiful scenery. We have been camping still so I couldn't read you Blog until tonight, I had not thought about you folks being down where Gustuv was. Glad you are alright.Bye for now Kathy Sayler
ReplyDelete