It doesn’t matter who we are, we all have something in particular that we enjoy doing on vacation. For some people, it’s sitting and enjoying a beverage while watching the beach from your comfortable chair. For others, it’s taking a hike in the wilderness.
As far as Noreen Wredberg is concerned, however, there is nothing quite like taking a chance of finding something interesting while you spend your vacation digging in the dirt.
Noreen and her husband, Michael, recently visited the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. If you’ve never heard about this particular State Park, it’s a great place to go because you can look for diamonds in the soil and if you find one, it’s yours to keep.
Of course, she and her husband were not necessarily expecting to find anything worth writing home about, but on September 23, they found something within an hour after arriving at the park.
Noreen bent over and picked up a yellow stone that was lying on top of the soil. She wasn’t quite sure what it was but when she sent it to the appraisal center at the park, they told her it was a 4.38-carat diamond.
At the time, she didn’t know if it was a diamond or not but it was shiny so she picked it up. Prior to the day that they arrived at the park, it had been raining and they came from California, so she was interested in picking up almost anything that she could find.
According to a park interpreter, rain uncovers a larger diamond at times and when the sun hits it, it makes it reflective and easy to see. It took less than an hour for her to find her prize.
As far as the size of the diamond is concerned, the park superintendent said is comparable to a jellybean. When he first saw it under a microscope, he couldn’t get over how beautiful it was.
Noreen Wredberg found the 4.38-carat yellow diamond sitting on top of the ground within an hour of searching. It’s the largest diamond found so far this year at Crater of Diamonds State Park. Read her story: https://t.co/Pcy8YDJV03 #ARStateParks #Diamonds pic.twitter.com/rFSHa8UCRd
— Arkansas State Parks (@ARStatePark) September 30, 2021
The Arkansas Department of Parks Heritage and Tourism establish the Crater of Diamonds State Park in 1972. It is only 37.5 acres, but it is a diamond-bearing site and it is the only one open to the public in the world.
Visitors to the park are allowed to take home any treasures that they have found. Over 75,000 diamonds have been found since 1906 when the park first opened. This year alone, there have been 258 diamonds found and sent in for appraisal. An average of one or two diamonds are discovered on a daily basis.
The second largest diamond found in the park was found on Labor Day 2020. It weighed 9.07 carats. Doreen found the third-largest by weight.