Greetings from Crater of Diamonds State Park! Visitors at the Crater of Diamonds get to do something here they can’t do at most other state parks – take the rocks and minerals they find home with them. There are specific rules regarding the type and amount of materials that can be removed from the park. They not only benefit the park but also the thousands of people who come here in search of diamonds.
According to the park’s diamond hunting rules and regulations, “No more than a sum total equivalent to five (5) gallons of processed concentrate may be taken from the search area per paying customer per day.” The processed concentrate is the rock material left behind by sifting after most of the dirt has been removed. Proper sifting of the diamond-bearing soil usually requires a screen mesh of 1/8” or smaller. Most sifters used by our visitors feature a 1/16” mesh.
When the weather is dry, soil in the diamond search area is fairly easy to break apart and sift by hand. The park also features areas where visitors can sift dirt more efficiently in water. After the dirt is removed, the remaining gravel can be further sorted for diamonds or dumped into a bucket to take home and search later.
Many visitors ask why they can’t take “just one” bucket of dirt from the search area. As an Arkansas State Park, part of our mission is to enhance the quality of life through sound resource management. Our diamond search area is this park’s largest resource, and we want visitors to search for diamonds here for many generations to come. With more than 155,000 visitors per year, if we allowed each person to take “just one” bucket of dirt, it wouldn’t be long until there was no search area at all!
Keeping dirt in the search area also benefits our visitors. Regular park guests frequently sift 100 buckets of dirt or more before finding a single diamond. The average yield for a five-gallon bucket of dirt is around one gallon of gravel. Though there is about a one percent chance of finding a diamond in a single bucket of dirt, visitors who take five gallons of processed gravel home are around five times as likely to find a diamond!
We want everyone to enjoy their time at the Crater of Diamonds. Through careful management of the diamond search area, this resource will be around for many generations to come!
Waymon Cox
Waymon Cox was a park interpreter at Crater of Diamonds State Park from 2008 until being promoted to assistant superintendent in 2022. Beginning in 2004 he worked as a clerk, seasonal park interpreter, and seasonal guide at Crater of Diamonds State Park and Historic Washington State Park. Waymon enjoys photography, writing, crocheting, and traveling around Arkansas with his family. He has found three of his own diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park and helps thousands of park visitors learn how to search for their own diamonds each year.
