Arkansas State Parks
- A woman from California found a diamond while visiting Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.
- Park staff identified the 4.38-carat yellow diamond, which she is allowed to keep.
- Arkansas is the only state in the US with a diamond mine that's open to the public.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
A woman from Granite Bay, California, can keep a 4.38-carat yellow diamond that she found while visiting Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas.
Noreen Wredberg found the diamond on September 23 within an hour of searching the park, which she and her husband decided to visit after a trip to Hot Springs National Park, according to the state parks department.
"I didn't know it was a diamond then, but it was clean and shiny, so I picked it up!" Wredberg told Waymon Cox, a park interpreter at Crate of Diamonds.
She brought the gem to the park's Diamond Discovery Center, where park staff identified it as a diamond.
"When I first saw this diamond under the microscope, I thought, 'Wow, what a beautiful shape and color!' Mrs. Wredberg's diamond weighs more than four carats and is about the size of a jellybean, with a pear shape and a lemonade yellow color," Park Superintendent Caleb Howell said.
Arkansas State Parks
Cox said Wredberg found the diamond days after a heavy rain, which is usually a good time to search because the rain will clear off dirt and gems will be easy to spot right on top of the soil.
Wredberg's diamond was the largest one found in the park since last year.
Crater of Diamonds is the only diamond mine accessible to the public in the entire US, the parks department said. Visitors can keep the diamonds, which most commonly are white, brown, and yellow.
Wredberg named her find Lucy's Diamond, after her husband's kitten, and is not yet sure what's she's going to do with it.