A 7-year-old Girl Found This 2.95-carat Diamond in a State Park on Her Birthday
"She was just in the right place at the right time,” her father said.
Courtesy of Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism
A 7-year-old girl got the birthday present of a lifetime when she discovered a nearly 3-carat diamond while digging in an Arkansas park.
The remarkable 2.95-carat golden brown diamond was discovered at Crater of Diamonds State Park, one of the only public-accessible diamond-bearing sites in the world. And little 7-year-old Aspen Brown wanted to celebrate her birthday there.
“She got hot and wanted to sit down for a minute, so she walked over to some big rocks by the fence line,” Aspen’s dad, Luther Brown, said in a statement. “Next thing I know, she was running to me, saying ‘Dad! Dad! I found one!’”
Luther Brown added: “There was no skill required for her to find it. She was just in the right place at the right time.”
The family aptly named the find the “Aspen Diamond.”
Assistant Park Superintendent Waymon Cox said in the statement the diamond, the second largest found by a park visitor and registered this year, was golden brown and had a “sparkling luster.”
“It is a complete crystal, with no broken facets and a small crevice on one side, created when the diamond was formed,” Cox added. “It’s certainly one of the most beautiful diamonds I’ve seen in recent years.”
The pea-size diamond marks the first large diamond registered with the park since an excavation project was completed last month.
“A contracted company dug a 150-yard trench in August to help manage erosion on the north side of the search area,” Caleb Howell, the park’s superintendent, said in the statement. “Several tons of unsearched diamond-bearing material were exposed and it’s very possible that this diamond and others were uncovered as a result.”
This is not the largest diamond to ever be discovered in the area. That distinction belongs to a 40.23-carat white diamond with a pink cast that was discovered in 1924, decades before the Arkansas park was established in 1972.
But large diamonds are found on a semi-regular basis like in 2020 when a man discovered a 9.07-carat brandy brown diamond and in 2021 when a California visitor discovered a 4.38-carat yellow diamond.
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