Shiny Rocks - Crater of Diamonds
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Crater of Diamonds State Park is 40 miles north of Hope, AR. The
mining area is a simple plowed field, so the terrain is based on
that...however, it can be extremely muddy at times. Watch your
step!
Arkansas, The Natural State, is blessed with an abundance of
geological wonders. The Crater of Diamonds State Park, the only
diamond-producing site in the world open to the public, stands out
as a unique geological "gem" for you to explore and enjoy. Here,
you are invited to prospect in the park's diamond search area, a
37-acre plowed field that is the eroded surface of an ancient
volcanic pipe that 95 million years ago, brought to the surface the
diamonds and some of the semi-precious stones lucky visitors find
here today. Diamonds of all colors of the rainbow can be found here
at Crater of Diamonds, but the three most common colors unearthed
by park visitors are white, brown and yellow. This Arkansas Diamond
Mine is a rockhound's delight since, along with diamonds, over 40
types of rocks and minerals can found here, too. These rocks and
minerals include lamproite, amethyst, banded agate, jasper,
peridot, garnet, quartz, calcite, barite and hematite. In 1906,
John Huddleston, the local farmer who owned this property then,
found the first diamonds here in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, and
started the diamond mining rush. According to the history of the
Crater of Diamonds State Park, after a series of ill-fated mining
ventures followed by tourist attractions, the site became an
Arkansas state park in 1972. Within the park boundary many remnants
of old mining ventures remain including the Mine Shaft Building,
the Guard House, mining plant foundations, old mining equipment and
smaller artifacts. Nowhere else is North American diamond mining
history as evident or as well preserved as here. Along with the
diamond search area, the park has hundreds of acres of natural
forest featuring a diversity of flora and fauna and offering
visitors interesting things to do in the area. Arkansas' natural
and cultural diversity -- the geology, the site's history, the
plants and animals -- makes the Crater of Diamonds State Park a
unique Arkansas attraction unlike any other in the world. You are
invited to visit this one-of-a-kind attraction and experience the
thrill of searching for real diamonds in the rough. Our park staff
will identify your finds for you. And, the policy here is "finders
keepers." Any diamonds, semi-precious stones, rocks or minerals you
unearth are yours to keep, regardless of their value. To log
this cache, enter the park to search for diamonds (adult fee - $6).
Two things must happen to get credit. Take a pic of you or one of
your party searching the field for diamonds or using the field
pavilions to sift and sluice for precious gems. Your GPS should be
pictured somehow. Next, email me with this information: In the
display area near the tool rental building, they show a
diamond-tipped saw that is ripping through something. It has a
crank handle you can turn to see it work. What is being sawed
through? (Please don't post a pic of this in your log. An email
will be sufficient. Logs without the proper picture of the hunt
with GPS and emailed answer will be promptly deleted.) The
story of the Crater of Diamonds begins over 3 billion years ago.
Then, the earth was not as we know it now. Instead of there being
seven continents spread over the globe, there was one huge landmass
that we refer to as Pangaea (a name that means "all lands"). The
outer surface, or crust, of the earth is divided into great
segments called plates. Since the layer below the plates is made of
hot, easily flowing material, the plates move about on this
surface. Imagine a big jelly sandwich, where the top slice of bread
moves around because the jelly is so gooey; that's basically how
the plates move. Basic Geology of the Crater of Diamonds. The
process of the continents moving on their plates away from each
other is called continental drift. This process is still going on,
though gradually, but sometimes shockingly (for example,
earthquakes). As the plates move, they collide with one another.
The stress of two plates pushing one another often causes mountains
to be created. Picture a tablecloth on a table. When you push the
tablecloth together, it bunches up in folds much the way mountains
will do on a continent. Another change that happens when two plates
push together is that through the stress, one plate must go below
the other. The lower plate continues its journey down deep into the
earth, where it becomes hotter and hotter, until the rock that
makes up the plate becomes liquid, or molten, like lava. This
process is what happened in Arkansas. Plates pushed together to
make the Ouachita Mountains, and one plate slipped below the other.
Believe it or not, 300 million years ago, most of Arkansas was
under water except for the Ouachitas. In fact, 135 million years
ago in the Ouachitas, flowering plants and trees began to appear
that were important for the emerging animal life: mammals, birds,
reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Dinosaurs roamed there until
about 70 million years ago. About 100 million years ago, the
continents finished the majority of their movement. But those last
movements formed cracks in the earth's crust, allowing some of the
hot magma from deep in the earth to escape. This is what happened
here at the Crater of Diamonds. The volcanic event that occurred
here pushed diamonds up with it. These diamonds had already formed,
perhaps several billion years ago, at mantle depths within the
earth, where tremendous heat and pressure had allowed carbon atoms
to bond tightly.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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