The International Student Blog

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Diamonds can be anybody’s friend at the Arkansas Diamond Mine in Murfreesboro. The Crater of Diamonds State Park is the only public diamond mine in the world.

If you’re an international student in Arkansas, forget breaking the bank for a precious stone, and save some of that money for your education. At the Crater of Diamonds State Park, visitors get a chance to dig and pan for diamonds, and whatever you find, you get to keep.

Since 1906, over 75,000 diamonds have been found.

The largest documented diamond found was the 40.23-carat “Uncle Sam” diamond, which was discovered in 1924. The largest diamond found since the Crater of Diamonds became a state park was the 16.37-carat “Amarillo Starlight,” discovered in 1975, according to arkansas.com.

The Crater of Diamonds is believed to be the eighth largest diamond reserve in the world, but more than 40 types of rocks and minerals can found there too including amethyst, garnet and quartz.

Over 60,000 visitors each year search a 37-acre plowed field for a chance to take home a glittering gem.

Over 100 acres of forest in Crater of Diamonds State Park give visitors more areas to explore and a swimming pool is located next to the diamond search pool to cool visitors off after a hot day of searching.

Diamonds aren’t the only thing international students in Arkansas can go prospecting for.

In the Ouachita Mountains there are many “dig your own” crystal mines.

Arkansas has some of the best quality quartz in the world.

Crystal Mountain, near Hot Springs and Mount Ida, “the quartz capital of the world,” have crystal mines, pits and exposed hillsides where backhoes and bulldozers have removed the soil and clay in search of the quartz veins.

In October, the World’s Championship Quartz Crystal Dig at Mount Ida is held. Contestants can compete for cash, prizes and trophies and can get to keep any crystals they mine during the contest. Also in October is the Quartz, Craftz, & Quiltz Festival.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 at 2:44 pm and is filed under International Student. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Written by Jenny Frankel

Jennifer is the Director of Financial Services at Envisage International. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Florida where she holds a Masters in International Business and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. She has lived and worked abroad in Chile, Costa Rica and London, and traveled extensively in South America, Europe and Asia.

Other posts by Jenny Frankel