(rock music) (rocks shaking) - Hi friends, I'm Park Interpreter Waymon, and we're here at the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

This world-famous place hosts thousands of people from all over the world who come here to search for real diamonds, but there's a lot more to find than just diamonds here.

Let's go in and take a look.

We're here at the Visitor Center.

This is your first stop when you arrive at the Crater of Diamonds.

There's lots of cool things you can do here, but one of the coolest is our museum.

In the museum, you can learn about who found the first diamonds.

John Huddleston found the first diamonds in Arkansas in 1906.

You can also learn about the geology of the park and why we have diamonds in Arkansas.

The Crater of Diamonds is a real volcanic pipe.

But most importantly, you can see uncut diamonds and know what you're going to look for before you start your search.

Now that you know a little about why we have diamonds in Arkansas, let's head down to the Diamond Discovery Center to get ready to search for diamonds.

At the Diamond Discovery Center, you can see some of the different rocks and minerals found here besides diamonds.

You can also learn about different ways to look for diamonds.

You can rent tools like this shovel to help in your search, and you can have your finds identified.

And best of all, any rock or mineral you find here, including diamonds, are yours to keep.

We're here at the entrance to the diamond search area.

Now people come here and search for diamonds for many different ways.

We're going to talk to my friend Dru, who is the Assistant Superintendent here at the Crater of Diamonds, about some of those different techniques.

So Dru, what are some of the different ways that people find diamonds?

- There's three ways to find diamonds here.

The first and most simple is surface searching, where you walk the field and you look for something shiny.

- [Waymon] So that's how a lot of our bigger diamonds tend to be found.

- The second way is using the equipment I have right here, either wet sifting, or dry sifting, where you take material from the minefield and run it through your big screen, then through your smaller screen.

If you have a diamond or other minerals that are interesting, you'll find them in the center here on your small screen.

- So Dru, how many diamonds are actually found here at the park?

- Well, one to two diamonds a day are found, on average, for about 400 to 600 a year, yeah, yeah.

- Wow.

- All right Waymon, I'm off to the Diamond Discovery Center to help people identify some of their stones.

- Okay, see ya.

(upbeat music) Wet sifting is going to be the most successful way to search overall, about 2/3 of our diamonds are found this way.

Set your screens into the water trough.

Get your dirt wet.

Start off, just go through that top screen by hand, getting as much of the loose dirt.

Once you have most of the loose dirt through your top screen, you'll pick both screens up together and shake them in the water to sift the dirt through your bottom screen.

Pretty simple, you're just getting the dirt sifted out.

After you've done that, you'll take the screens out of the water and take your top screen off.

Ideally, this is where your diamond is going to be, right?

Everybody wants to find the big one.

So you can find diamonds in this top screen, but your best chance of finding one is going to be in the bottom screen with all this fine gravel.

The first thing you'll do is hold your screen on both sides around the middle of the wooden frame.

You'll set it down in the water and rock your screen with a quick left and right motion.

You want to roll your gravel up to the middle.

Step two, tap your screen up and down on both hands at the same time, just kind of bounce it in the water.

The tapping motion spreads the gravel back into a flat layer.

The heavier gravel sinks down, the lighter stuff spreads out.

For step three, you'll turn the screen a quarter turn, you'll switch sides with it, and repeat all three steps eight to 10 times.

Now after eight to 10 repetitions, flip it over.

When you do it right, you should see a concentration of color.

Those are crystals, diamonds are crystals too.

So if you're finding a spot where water has washed through and it's carried a lot of quartz and calcite, some other crystals there, your chances of finding a diamond go up as well because that water can move diamonds if it can move quartz and calcite.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Y'all have a great day, go out and find a big 'un.

While you're searching for your very own diamonds here at Crater of Diamonds State Park, take a look around and you can still see glimpses of our past.

And you'll join a long line of history too, the history of people who have come here from all over the world to search for their very own diamonds.

As you've seen, there's a lot more than just diamonds to find at Crater of Diamonds State Park.

We hope you'll join us soon.