A French tourist found a 7.46 ct. brown diamond at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park on Jan. 11. It is the eighth largest diamond discovery in the Murfreesboro park’s 22-year history.
The gumdrop-size stone was discovered by Julien Navas of Paris, who came to the United States to see the Vulcan Centaur rocket launch at Cape Canaveral, Fla. After that event, he went to New Orleans and, having previously panned for gold and searched for ammonite fossils, was intrigued enough by Crater of Diamonds to also make a stop there.
Crater of Diamonds is the only public park in the world that lets visitors hunt for diamonds and keep what they find.
Navas was lucky: When he visited the park, it was wet and muddy from over an inch of recent rainfall. “As rain falls on the field, it washes away the dirt and uncovers heavy rocks, minerals, and diamonds near the surface,” said assistant park superintendent Waymon Cox in a park press release. Many of the park’s largest diamonds are found on the surface, Cox noted.
Navas spotted the diamond after several hours of searching. “I am so happy,” he said in the park statement. “All I can think about is telling my fiancée what I found.”
The round diamond was christened the Carine, after Navas’ fiancée. He said he hopes to have the stone cut into two diamonds, one for his fiancée and one for his daughter.
Navas called Crater of Diamonds “a magical place, where the dream of finding a diamond can come true. It was a great adventure.” He said he plans to return with his daughter when she is older.
The Carine is the largest diamond registered at the park since 2020, when an Arkansas man found a 9.07 ct. stone, which would be dubbed the Kinard Friendship Diamond, over Labor Day weekend.
JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky wrote about her experience at Crater of Diamonds in 2014.
(Photos courtesy of Arkansas State Parks)
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