8.52-carat white diamond found at Crater of Diamonds State Park

KATV.COM ^ | 26 JUNE 2015 | KATV.COM

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) - An 8.52-carat white diamond was found June 24 by Bobbie Oskarson of Longmont, Colorado, at Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds State Park, according to park officials.

Clear white and icicle shaped, this gem is the fifth largest diamond found by a park visitor since the state park was established at Arkansas's diamond site in 1972.

Twenty minutes into her search, she found the diamond in a couple scoops she had dug from a small mound of dirt.

Oskarson was in the southwest corner of the park's 37 ½-acre search field in an area known as the Pig Pen, aptly named because it is the muddiest part of the search area after a good rain.

She named her gem the Esperanza Diamond, both her niece's name and the Spanish word for “hope.”

At this time, Oskarson plans to keep the gem.

[afraidfortherepublic]

FTA: “Ms. Oskarson's eight-and-a-half-carat diamond is absolutely stunning, sparkling with a metallic shine, and appears to be an unbroken, capsule-shaped crystal. It features smooth, curved facets, a characteristic shared by all unbroken diamonds from the Crater of Diamonds," Cox said. “Ms. Oskarson's diamond is about three-quarters of an inch long and as big around as a standard No. 2 pencil.”

But, she should lose the blue nails when she wears that rock.

[tumblindice]

Same deal, Mom washing dishes and I came up behind her with a small cage containing a gerbil.
As a girl she drove tractors and operated other machinery, chopped cotton and killed rattlesnakes with a hoe on her family’s farm/ranch in Oklahoma.

I didn’t know she had an unnatural fear of rodents.

If she had had a Kingsford charcoal briquet in her hand when she spotted the gerbil just inches away, I believe she could have squeezed a diamond out. Even with all the shouting, foot stomping and so forth.

[Vroomfondel]

Pooh...A thirty second job for Superman.

or Vulcan

[ErnBatavia]

We visited the place in the summer of 2009....heading west on I-30, we took the exit to Murfreesboro and the park, and still agree that was the prettiest 25 miles or so we drove on - across the entire country...we even passed through tiny Delight, Arkansas - birthplace of Glen Campbell.

Not knowing what to expect, wifey had on white capris and matching flip flops.....given the mud, we didn't actually "mine" for more than a few minutes, but the entire experience was a hoot. We'd do it again in a heartbeat.