The Great Diamond Rush...

Another week, another Trazzler contest entry.  Here's the backstory on this one:

My brother and I have driven across the country twice, once west-bound and once east-bound.  I determine the general route ("It's winter, so let's cross in the south.") and buy guidebooks (he was a starving grad student at the time, and is now a starving teacher), and he does some internet research (okay, he has enough money for cable internet) and finds gems like Arkansas' Crater of Diamonds State Park, stating in all seriousness, "We're going here so I can find a engagement ring diamond."  He didn't have a girlfriend at the time.  No, really.

"Slow down, I want to get a picture of the sign!"

Anyway, apparently the south-central part of the United States has enough places like this that you could go on a week-long mining road trip.  We debated making the trip geologically themed.  I even went solo to Carlsbad Caverns before I picked him up.  But I was feeling Travels with Charley, there are way too many random Americana sites to see, the chance to do a cross-country road trip only happens once every two and a half years, and the brother and I were on a mission to get to New York before his interview, so we restricted ourselves to finding diamonds in our allotted hour at the Crater.  

The brother doesn't read all the interesting parts of the guidebook out loud but is okay with driving long distances and making diverts for random historical sites and/or breweries, so I became the geology and gemology lecturer/navigator/travel guide/drive-by photographer for most of the trip.

Fun fact that I remembered to include in my geology lecture: The Crater of Diamonds was formed 100 million years ago, approximately, by volcanic action that spewed diamonds and other compressed minerals high into the air.  They settled back into the volcanic cone and were covered by a mere 160 feet or so of dirt, in place of the previous miles of dirt.  That 160 feet or so of dirt has since been redistributed elsewhere, exposing the gemstones (diamond, amethyst, peridot, etc.) to the farmer that spotted a 2-carat diamond lying in the dirt in 1906 and generations of diamond-hunters since.

Fun fact that I should've included in my gemology lecture: Diamonds seem to have an oily sheen to them, which keeps dirt from sticking to them and makes them be easily discoverable in, oh, a 37-acre field.  Or, theoretically at least, more easily discoverable than the other rocks and minerals there.  This assumes that the preponderance of said rocks and minerals are diamonds.  Right.  Moving on.

"Oh my God, oh my God, please don't break my car!"

I was navigating as we approached the park but iPhone navigation cuts out in backwoods Arkansas (who knew?), so we missed our turn.  The iPhone, which conveniently regained satellite access a mile later, said to turn around, but I'm a trained map-reader and obviously knew better than to trust the phone again.  I saw a road on the map that would be more direct, and we were on a tight schedule.  We took it.  Quickly.

It was definitely the road less traveled.  But hey, every road trip should have a Bo and Daisy Duke moment, right?

"Hurry up.  We only have an hour to find an engagement ring."

State Parks are dirt cheap.  This one allows you to keep everything you find, even if it's a giant, flawless diamond, which makes it even a better deal.  Also, they rent the equipment you need, so you can literally do zero preparation for this, spend $20 for two adults, and end up with thousands of dollars of diamonds. 

Zero preparation, in our case, included poor choice of clothing (on the brother's part, but he didn't have time to change), lack of proper gemology reading (on my part, but I didn't have time to drive AND google), not enough time (on our shared part, but we had to get to the Little Rock High School to check out the civil rights museum), and ice-cold water in the shaded troughs (on the park's part, but we left at 8:20 am so the sun didn't have much of a chance to overcome the 40-degree weather; see background of the photo above; this water convinced us that the natural result of washing the mud off our hands would be frostbite).  Oh, and failure of the brother to download his camera to my computer before he lost it.  He has no excuse.  F minus, bro.

"Can you dig?  I don't want my khakis to get dirty."

In order to find the mandated diamond, we set ourselves well apart from the other three people in the field (so we could have our own 10 acres to comb over in 60 minutes) and set to digging.  By this I mean that I took a few pictures, was told to hurry up, got handed a shovel (because I was wearing jeans), and sifted through the dirt by hand while on my knees.  The brother sifted, carefully yet vigorously, so as not to get messy.  He occasionally took off his tuque and wiped his brow with the back of his wrist, for sifting is hard work.  We both pocketed the potentially interesting rocks we came across, even those that were a kind of mottled red (jasper).  We covered approximately six square feet.

Fun fact that we learned when the nice people at the visitor center disappointed us: Diamonds come in brown and yellow as well as white.  Barite looks suspiciously like brown diamonds.  Calcite looks suspiciously like yellow diamonds.  Quartz looks suspiciously like white diamonds.  The first two blend into the ground in early morning winter light, especially when the ground is still a touch damp from rain earlier in the week.  We found pretty stones, mostly by pushing the clay off them with muddy thumbs.  And by pretty stones, I mean no diamonds.  Frownie face :(

But hey, when's the last time YOU mined for diamonds?

Referenced in this post:

Travels with Charley in Search of America, by John Steinbeck

"The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost