Woman Finds Large Diamond at Arkansas State Park

Credit: Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park

The ice white diamond is the largest find so far in 2018

A 71-year-old retired woman, who came with her family to the Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park, hit paydirt after just ten minutes of looking: The woman discovered an ice white diamond weighing 2.63 carats – the largest find so far in 2018.


The woman, a retiree from Aurora, Colorado, was walking around with her husband, son, grandson, and granddaughter when she made the discovery. According to a press release, she said that the gem was just lying on the surface “about halfway between the East Drain and North Wash Pavilion in the park’s 37.5-acre diamond search area”.
She didn’t realize that she had picked up a diamond, thinking “it might be a piece of glass”. She discovered the treasure when she and her family brought the stone to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center.

She named her gem Lichtenfels – the name of her hometown in Germany and a word that means “a rock between two lights”. As of now, 256 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park so far in 2018, weighing a total of 49.64 carats.

The Crater of Diamonds State Park is the only publicly-owned diamond prospecting site in the world. Visitors pay an entrance fee and are allowed to keep any diamonds or other precious stones they discover while in the park, regardless of their value


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