09 September 2023 , 00:19
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At a state park in Murfreesboro, a seven-year-old girl spotted the second-largest diamond that a park visitor has found this year, trailing only a 3.29-carat brown diamond found in March. Aspen Brown's massive find is the first sizable diamond to be registered after a park excavation project was finished last month.
In order to commemorate her birthday, Aspen Brown went to the park with her father and grandma. They moved to the north side of the 37.5-acre diamond search area in the park, which is a cultivated field on top of an ancient volcano's eroded surface.
Luther Brown, Aspen's father, said: “She got hot and wanted to sit down for a minute, so she walked over to some big rocks by the fence line. Next thing I know, she was running to me, saying ‘Dad! Dad! I found one!’”
From a trail at the northeastern edge of the search area, Aspen plucked a gem the size of a green pea. The family stopped at the Diamond Discovery Center on the way out of the park to get their finds identified. Aspen's jewel was a diamond, the park workers there said, according to a press release shared on the park's website.
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Aspen was on a birthday trip with her father, Luther Brown, when she found the diamond, which she named 'The Aspen Diamond' (Getty Images/iStockphoto)“Aspen’s diamond has a golden-brown color and a sparkling luster. It is a complete crystal, with no broken facets and a small crevice on one side, created when the diamond was formed,” said Waymon Cox, assistant park superintendent. “It’s certainly one of the most beautiful diamonds I’ve seen in recent years.”
The diamonds that visitors find at Crater of Diamonds State Park frequently get given names. The Aspen Diamond, according to Luther Brown, is the ideal moniker. "She didn't need any special abilities to find it. She was simply in the ideal location at the ideal time.
The diamond found by the young girl was the first of its kind to be registered after the park underwent an excavation project last month.
“A contracted company dug a 150-yard trench in August to help manage erosion on the north side of the search area,” said Caleb Howell, park superintendent.
Aspen's find is the second-biggest discovery in the park since March when a patron found a 3.29-carat diamond (@arkansasstateparks)“Several tons of undiscovered diamond-bearing material were exposed and it’s very possible that this diamond and others were uncovered as a result.“
The 3.72-carat Caro Avenger, another sizable diamond that was discovered nearby in 2019, was where the Aspen Diamond was discovered. 563 diamonds totaling more than 89 carats have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park as of the time of publication in 2023.
Visitors to the park discover one to two diamonds every day on average. Since the first diamonds were found by John Huddleston, a farmer who owned the site before it became a state park in 1972, over 75,000 gems have been discovered at the Crater of Diamonds.
On the property that subsequently became the state park, a mining operation discovered the biggest diamond ever found in the United States in 1924.