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Old 06-01-2009, 02:34 PM   #1
fasteddie
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Default [News] Yorkie Finds White 1.11-carat Diamond at Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds Park

Each year, hundreds of visitors come to Arkansas's diamond site, the Crater of Diamonds State Park, with what has often been called man’s best friend. Many different breeds of dogs accompany their owners to the park. It's a common site at the park. However, a not so common occasion is when one of the dogs finds a diamond. On Saturday, May 30, a two-year-old yorkie named Tigger visited Crater of Diamonds State Park for the first time and found a beautiful, white 1.11-carat diamond. Tigger's owner, Gerald Brown of De Queen, Arkansas, has visited the Crater of Diamonds numerous times over the past months with human companions. This past weekend, however, Brown was destined to search alone in the park's diamond search area while his wife visited family in Texas. But as he was preparing leave home for the park, he saw Tigger, his small gray Yorkie, "giving me the puppy dog eyes,” said Brown. “I just couldn’t leave her behind.”

So, Brown and Tigger headed to Murfreesboro. By 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of May 30, they were spending their first day together at the park. As he was sifting dirt in the park's diamond search area, Brown noticed his dog chewing on something. “I thought she had a wasp or some sort of bug in her mouth,” he said of the dog’s actions, “and I went over to get a better look at what she had.” As Brown approached Tigger, the dog dropped the object and the sun flashed on its shiny exterior. At first glance, Brown throught it was a piece of glass. “I reached down and tried to get it from her and she started growling at me, so I knocked it away and then picked it up. After I really got a good look at it, I said to myself, ‘This has to be a diamond!’” The icy white gem weighs 1.11 carats and is about the size of a pencil eraser. The stone has a beautiful octahedral crystal shape. The park staff presented Brown with a card bearing Tigger’s, the finder's name, certifying the stone as a genuine diamond from the Crater of Diamonds.

When asked about future plans for the diamond, Brown replied that he isn’t sure what they’ll do with the gem, but he’ll definitely never go diamond prospecting again without Tigger “The Diamond-Digger!”

The park policy is finder-keepers. What park visitors find in the diamond search area is theirs to keep. The search area at the Crater of Diamonds is a 37 ½-acre plowed field, the eroded surface of the eighth largest diamond-bearing deposit in the world in surface area. It is the world’s only diamond-producing site open to the public. Diamonds come in all colors of the rainbow. The three most common colors found at the park are white, brown and yellow, in that order.

Other semi-precious gems and minerals found at the Crater of Diamonds include amethyst, garnet, peridot, jasper, agate, calcite, barite and quartz. Over 40 different rocks and minerals are unearthed at the Crater making it a rock hound's delight. Crater of Diamonds State Park is located two miles southeast of Murfreesboro. It is one of the 52 state parks administered by the State Parks Division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

For more information, contact: Tom Stolarz, park superintendent, Crater of Diamonds State Park, 209 State Park Road, Murfreesboro, Arkansas 71958. Phone: 870-285-3113. E-mail: tom.stolarz@arkansas.gov. Or visit craterofdiamondsstatepark.com.

Yorkie Finds White 1.11-carat Diamond at Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds State Park on Saturday, May 30
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