CRATER OF DIAMONDS 2007 FINDS!

LARGE DIAMONDS FOUND AT THE CRATER IN THE SUMMER OF 2007

On June 5, 2007, 13-year-old Nicole Ruhter of Butler, Missouri was searching for diamonds with her family while camping at Crater of Diamonds State Park. She saw something shiny on the surface of the diamond search area, next to a well-worn path that she was walking along. It turned out to be a tea-colored, 2.93-carat diamond! Miss Ruhter later named her special find "The Pathfinder Diamond".

An even larger diamond was found on June 9. Milton Milam of Shreveport, Louisiana was digging in the mines West Drain area when he unearthed a 4.80-carat white diamond. Mr. Milam had found diamonds at the park in the past, but this was his largest.
Another sizeable diamond was found by Chuck Scanlon of Des Moines, Iowa . He was surface searching when he discovered a 2.14-carat brown diamond on June 29.

Some other large diamonds found during the summer months were a 1.18-carat white; a 1.08-carat white; a 1.12-carat brown; a 1.34-carat brown; a 1.31-carat white; a 1.27-carat white; a 1.40-carat white; a 1.71-carat white; a 1.00-carat white; a 1.10-carat white; a 1.31-carat white; and a 1.37-carat white.

Crater of Diamonds State Park [craterofdiamonds@arkansas.com]

Teen Finds Diamond in State Park!

Arkansas Teen Finds 2.93 Carat Diamond At State Park!

June 6, 2007

A 13-year-old teenager has reportedly discovered a 2.93-carat diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro. Nicole Ruhter's diamond is a tea-colored broken pyramid shaped with several imperfections, but the to-be-eighth grader is happy to have found one.

"I was kind of praying to God. I was saying, 'I don't care if it's worth whatever it's worth, I don't care if it's a tiny little sliver of something, I just want something,'" she told the AP of her find. "Ten minutes later, I just found it."

The Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world's only diamond-bearing site where visitors are allowed to search for and keep the gems they find.

The largest of the 25,000 diamonds found to date at the park since it was opened for the public in 1972, is a 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, found by a visitor from Texas in 1975.