Aspen Brown spent her birthday atop the eroded surface of an ancient diamond-bearing volcano.
Turning 7, the birthday girl from Paragould, Arkansas, visited a state park in Murfreesboro with her dad and grandma on Sept. 1 and came home with a 2.95-carat diamond that she found there herself.
“It’s certainly one of the most beautiful diamonds I’ve ever seen in recent years,” Waymon Cox, assistant superintendent at Crater of Diamonds State Park, stated in a press release. He describes her diamond as “golden-brown” with “a sparkling luster.”
It’s a complete crystal with no broken facets, he added, made even more unique for having “a small crevice on one side, created when the diamond was formed.”
Aspen had sat down beside some big rocks next to the fence line, hoping to beat the Arkansas heat, her dad, Luther Brown, told the park. “Next thing I know she was running to me saying, ‘Dad, Dad! I found one!”
She had plucked a stone about the size of a green pea from a pathway along the northeast side of the search area, where visitors are free to sift the soil for diamonds.
Aspen’s 2.95-carat diamond is the second-largest found at the park this year, topped only by a 3.29-carat brown diamond that was dug up last March.
One to two diamonds are found at Crater of Diamonds per day on average and, to date, 563 diamonds have been registered at the state park this year, the park states.
Hers was the first large diamond registered at the park since an excavation project was completed last month to help manage erosion at the volcanic site. A company was contracted to dig a 150-yard (137-meter) trench on the north side of the visitors’ search area, said park superintendent Caleb Howell.
“Several tons of unsearched diamond-bearing material were exposed,” he said. “It’s very possible that this diamond and others were uncovered as a result.”
The Brown family stopped by the visitors’ center on their way out and park staff authenticated Aspen’s diamond. Per the park’s long-standing tradition, she then gave it a name, fittingly dubbing her sparkling golden-brown gemstone the Aspen Diamond.
It’s the “perfect name” for the birthday girl’s diamond, Mr. Brown said, adding that “there was no skill required to find it” and “she was just in the right place at the right time.”
The Aspen Diamond was found near where a 3.72-carat diamond was unearthed in 2019, the park stated.
Over 75,000 diamonds have been plucked from the volcanic soil here since farmer John Huddleston first began unearthing the precious gemstones from the land, long before it became a state park in 1972. Crater of Diamonds State Park is one of the only places in the world where the public is allowed to search for real diamonds.
