Searching for Diamonds

We spent the day diamond mining.  In case you never heard of it (the mine is on Discovery channel every once in a while), Arkansas has a state park with a diamond mine.  You pay to get in plus you can rent equipment, then you can keep whatever you find.  It doesn’t look like a mine, but is just a field.  Years ago a volcano pushed up lava, ash, and diamonds into a fairly small 37 acre area.  It used to be mined commercially.  Now, every once in a while they plow the fields and turn over more diamonds.  Two diamonds are found every day on average.  Most of them are less than a carat but every year or so someone finds a big 4+ carat diamond.  They said 3 diamonds were found the day before.

There are three ways to search for diamonds.  The first is to simply walk up and down the fields.  After a rain like we had a few days ago, the dirt is washed away and diamonds might be found from the sparkle in the sunlight.  Dry sifting works by taking the top ½” of dry dirt and allows you to sift through the dirt to find diamonds.  Wet sifting uses dirt where diamonds may have settled.  More material is processed with this method.  You get a mixture of the small stuff that might have diamonds in it.  Most people take this home to sort.  They say half the diamonds are found at home after it’s dried better and with better lighting.

I used the walking method.  Didn’t find any diamonds but I found several good agates, some jasper, calcite, and lamproite (volcanic rocks).  John used the wet method.  While he didn’t find diamonds, there’s always the chance we have a diamond in the material he hasn’t sorted through.  Gives us hope! 

After a full day, my feet hurt from walking (luckily my knee has mostly healed) and shoulders hurt from being hunched over.  John’s really worked his shoulders and arms with working in the troughs.  While we may not have found diamonds we did get a great day of exercise and sun!