Crater of Diamonds National Park is the only Diamond Mine in the United States. It was assayed in the 1990's, and determined that there weren't enough diamonds for commercial mining. Now it's a park where people can come and try their luck finding diamonds themselves. It looked like there were about 100 people out there today. A few hard-core miners who rent cages for their equipment, but mostly tourists like us. The "diamond field" looked like a big plowed field of mud. They plow if every month to turn over the soil and give visitors a fresh look. The hard-core miners use a skinny iron probe about 6 feet long that they shove down into the mud. If it goes it easily, they try a new spot. They are trying to locate a layer of gravel. If they find one, they dig down to it and pan the gravel to find diamonds. The guy I talked to was at it about a year, and found 53 diamonds. On the day we were there, 4 diamonds were found; the biggest was 1.68 carats. We found a few likely candidates, but they turned out to be either quartz or jaspar.
Someone who was thinking put a mini-water park right in front of the diamond mine. The Zees couldn't resist the Siren's call and we only lasted a couple hours in the field. After cooling off in the pool, Karen insisted on going back to hunt more, but the Zees retreated to Baxter to watch a movie.
What are the chances that when they turn it over they seed it with a few diamonds to keep up the interest?
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