MURFREESBORO, AR. (THECOUNT) — Pat Choate has been identified as the Arkansas woman who found the largest brown diamond picked up at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in more than two years. Th gem clocks in at a whopping 3.29 carats.
Choate and her husband, John Choate, live in Jacksonville, about a two-hour drive from the park. They’ve visited several times and found five diamonds before, but Pat made her biggest discovery on Tuesday.
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She spent about 30 minutes searching the southwest part of the area before she spotted it.
“I saw something shiny several feet ahead of me and walked over to see what it was,” Choate said, according to a news release. “I lost sight of it when I got close, but then I turned around I found the diamond lying beside me!”
Staff registered the diamond and discovered it weighed 3.29 carats. Choate named it “Illusive Dream,” reports 4029tv.
This is the largest brown gem found at the park since a Centerton teenager found a 7.44 carat brown diamond in March 2017.
“This is the first large diamond found since Royce Walker Excavating, of Lockesburg, Arkansas, completed a deep plowing project in early October to reveal unsearched diamond-bearing material,” Waymon Cox, park interpreter, said. Rainfall this week washed away loose soil from the surface and likely exposed Mrs. Choate’s diamond.”
The Crater of Diamonds State Park is the only diamond-producing site in the world where the public can search for diamonds and keep them.
Geo quick facts: Murfreesboro is a city in, and the county seat of, Pike County, Arkansas, United States. Its population was 1,764 at the 2000 census. The city is known for the Crater of Diamonds State Park located south of the city – Wikipedia.