Teen Turns Up 2.9-Carat Diamond at Park in Arkansas

In Murfreesboro, Arkansas, 13-year-old Nicole Ruhter and her family leave the Crater Diamonds State Park, disappointed that they did not find any diamonds while digging that evening.

As she left the park, she kept looking even as they were walking along the path leading outside the park. Determined, Nicole believed that she would find something as she left the park, praying to God saying, "I don't care if its worth whatever it's worth, I don't care if it's a tiny little sliver of something, I just want something." Apparently, heard prayer was heard 10 minutes later as she found a tea-colored, 2.93-carat diamond along the walking path exiting the state park., according to the Associated Press.

As of right now, visitors of Crater Diamonds State Park have found 332 diamonds, which is the equivalent to two a day, assistant park superintendent Bill Henderson said. While this may seem like a lot, the average stone size is only about the size of a match head.

Nicole and her parents, grandparents, brother and two sisters of Butler, Missouri had spent the Tuesday evening digging in two fields. As the day neared to an end, they headed down a service road followed by thousands of other tourists who had not found anything.

"I just walked and saw this little shine," Nicole said. "We wrapped it up in a little dollar bill and took it back" to show park rangers. As she admired her new found stone, she described it as shaped like a broken pyramid and said she's going to name it the "Pathfinder Diamond."

For now, Nicole and her family plan to keep it for a time and find out the value of the diamond before trying to sell it.

While the park itself does not do appraisals, specialists that have appraised diamonds found in the state park have once valued a 4-carat diamond found in the park to be worth from $15,000 to $60,000. Henderson though, has said that Nicole's diamond does have chips and imperfections, but will still be worth a significant amount of money.

Crater of Diamonds State Park opened in 1972, and is the world's only diamond-producing site open to the public. Visitors of the park are allowed to keep the precious stones and gems they unearth. The largest diamond ever found in the park was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight. This white diamond was found by a lucky Texas visitor in 1975.

The Associated Press. "Teen Turns Up 2.9-Carat Diamond at Park." Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070607_ap_teen_diamond.html