Diamond Mining in Arkansas

Arkansas Diamond Mine

Tanner and Taryn - Star of Arkansas The Quigley family recently tried their luck, mining for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. The Crater of Diamonds State Park , is the only diamond-producing site in the world open to the public, and stands out as a unique geological "gem."

The park's diamond search area, a 37-acre plowed field is the eroded surface of an ancient volcanic pipe that 95 million years ago, brought to the surface the diamonds and some of the semi-precious stones lucky visitors find here today.

Diamonds of all colors of the rainbow can be found at Crater of Diamonds, but the three most common colors unearthed by park visitors are white, brown and yellow. Crater of Diamonds State Park is a rockhound's delight since, along with diamonds, more than 40 types of rocks and minerals can found here, too. These rocks and minerals include lamproite, amethyst, banded agate, jasper, peridot, garnet, quartz, calcite, barite and hematite.

After eight hours of digging and a lot of fun they didn't find any diamonds but they did create a lot of great memories.

Diamond Mining for a Living

Some people make their living mining diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. James Archer mined for 30 years and found more then 10,000 diamonds before his death in 2003.

Pictured below are two full-time miners. The man in the blue shirt has mined about five days a week for the past several years finding 396 diamonds with the largest diamond weighing 4.42 carats.

Today the two miners have hand dug and filled seventy-two 5 gallon buckets of dirt from a 10' by 10' foot hole. They then have to hand - carry the buckets about ¼ of a mile to their private leased area. Tomorrow they will spend the entire day wet sifting the material in hopes of finding a diamond.