How to find diamonds! Crater of Diamonds State Park.

[Music] [Music] well hello everyone dan here with dan here prospecting here welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome i hope to earn your subscription today i am here at the crater of diamonds state park the crater of diamond state park in arkansas we are here looking for diamonds today now the diamonds here at the state park are few and far between so we've got a team effort going on today we're gonna find one we sure hope so wish us luck and i hope you enjoy [Music] and of course as always with this arkansas trip we got pioneer paulie here i gotta do laundry yes so if you wanna check out his perspective there will be a video from here on paulie's channel as well and of course today we have our very gracious hosts who are showing us what to do and how to do it we have the cutest gem hunter in history oh yeah there's also frank it's that camping couple now this is my first time at the crater of diamonds here actually my first time diamond mining in general and i know the gist of it i have done gem mining before diamonds are heavy just like garnets and peridot they come out the same way but this is the first time i'm here with diamonds it is so exciting they are very hard to find at the crater diamonds here in fact they say some days there's up to 500 people here searching for diamonds and on a typical day one is found throughout the whole park now that camping couple frank and kendall say they have the technique down and they guarantee us we're gonna find one today hopefully one for each of us even but that might be pushing our luck a little bit much i will explain along the way what we're doing how we're doing it how we find these diamonds why they are here all that stuff but first let's get searching [Music] nice yes apparently frank needs to fill the bin his own way so we will be working the east drain if you know uh the crater diamonds at all we will be working the east drain today and that's because that's where frank and kendall have found lots of diamonds they say they typically can find one diamond in two days work if they're working hard all day in the east drain so that's we're working today we brought bins and hoses and all that kind of stuff so we can work as close as possible to the east drain that way we don't have to carry the gravels a long distance to the washing sheds that are way way over there that would be difficult we get to work right beside the east drain and if you're wondering why the drain this is where water flows through in big storms and as water flows through it washes away mud lights and it leaves the heaviers and the heaviers the heaviers there's our turn the heavies and uh the gravel behind and it concentrates in the drains meaning there's a better chance to find diamonds here than there and that's why we work the drains today the east drain a tiny bit of water flowing you can see the water flowing here is actually you can see washing away the mud the mud goes away leaving the gravels behind and sure enough there could be a diamond in any of this in fact this looks like a great spot to start digging [Applause] it's a diamond no no it's not it is important to dig gravels rather than just the clay mud that's around so as you're digging you're really looking for rocks and loose gravel to come out rather than just solid chunks of mud and clay and this is looking like some pretty nice gravel here and that's what the diamonds actually form in now typically up north where we have like world-class diamond mines and stuff we know that the diamonds form in kimberlite kimberlite pipes those are ancient ancient volcanoes that blasted material from the core of the earth basically up and carried diamonds with them frank was just telling us the material here that formed the diamonds is called lamparite which i'm not too familiar with but it's got to be something similar to kimberlite a material from way down in the earth's crust like way down there that came up through volcanic action and carried diamonds with it the volcanic action that carried diamonds from deep in the earth's core doesn't happen anymore the volcanoes that erupt these days don't carry diamonds with them that kind of volcanic action happened millions and billions of years ago and any diamonds that may have come up from the earth's core or deep in the crust have already come up there are no new diamonds coming up your geology lesson of the day this is second time in history i've seen paulie actually shovel wow he must really want a diamond i had a monster energy drink enough to make me one dig now this is a multi-step process we've got the bucket stuck from the from the drain we've carried them over here the next step is to put them into this set of sieves and sieve them down to different sizes the bigger bigger stuff it can just be tossed we don't have you know fist size diamonds here they just don't exist then we have sort of the quarter inch plus in the top sieve we'll have the quarter to 1 16 in the bottom sieve and if it's smaller than 1 16 it's gone away it's gone down there it would be what's known as a micro diamond there are people that hunt those but we're hoping to find something bigger than that 1 16. then after that we go into the gem sieving process but i'll explain that when we get that far apparently paul can't lift buckets go polly go go polly go you can do it yup that's pretty much it [Applause] [Applause] [Laughter] now the top screen the quarter plus we just have a good look through if there were a diamond up here it would jump out you would see it instantly it would glow in there it would show oh you would not miss it so we have a quick look through it before we dump it to make a bed for a gem sieving later but we do want to have a quick look because if we found one up there it would be the find of the year up here for sure and the bottom screen is like a 1 16 inch screen maybe even a 20 mesh screen and up to quarter inch this is the material that we're gonna go through the gem sieve later on and see if there is any diamonds in it for now we're just gonna take this and put it into a bucket and save it for gem sieving a little later well i've done three buckets full so far just sifting it down and keeping the small stuff for gem sieving later but i'm letting frank take over for a few moments here because my back is killing me i am still working with a herniated disc and it really hurts bending over like that so take a bit of a break and i'll get back at it in a second i don't know like six six i don't know i've done three so far nice okay frank tell us what you really think of polly [Laughter] me too me too that's exactly what i think too [Music] [Music] so we've processed probably 10 to 20 buckets worth and we have just the fine material saved aside in other buckets we're going to go and do some gem sieving now flipping over checking their centers and seeing if we're on the right material if once we flipped two or three times the material looks terrible we know we shouldn't dig in that hole anymore and we'll move but right now we want to see what that material looks like frank's just making a nice flat spot to flip on and if you haven't seen my other videos on gem sieving this is known as a gem sieve or sometimes a saruka it is designed for finding gems because gems are heavier than the other material around they sift out they they sort of act like gold does in a gold pan they fall to the bottom and the way you move this thing you can actually bring all the heavies right into the very center and then when you flip it over the bottom center is now the top center and you can find those heavies right there shining in the sun and hopefully a diamond but we gotta do one of those first and see if we're on the right material putting it over there and flat we're using a little bit of this stuff that was actually smaller than the 1 16 to make kind of a bed for ceruken usually we'll use the gravel after we do some ceruken we'll take the centers and all the extra gravel around it will make a really nice bed but to start off we need something kind of flat and since they plow this field it's kind of hard to find a flat spot this will work frank's just playing in the mud making mud pies for paulie to eat drink okay here we go frank frank's gonna find the first time of the day in the first gem civ of the day they do say the first and the last are the luckiest clip on top of the bin an empty bin no we're gonna flip right here that's why he made that bed oh i see she all right so basically all you're doing right now is rotating and tapping it using specific gravity to get all the heavies to the bottom and by now the diamonds will be at the bottom but they're not centered yet so what we're going to do is shake it back and forth rotate it and do that about 10 times and you're just working all the heavy to the middle and then when you get all the heavies pretty well to the middle you're gonna do a little bit more tapping and the most important part of this is once you get it down to pull it up slowly at an angle and let all the water run out and there should be a really nice white center or at least all the heavies will be in the center where we do the gem sieving often the centers are black with light material around the outside that's just the different type of material we have here you have a dark outside with a light center but again it's just the heavies that come into the center a diamond there we go that looks perfect so actually lots of heavies we got some nice quartz uh you got the little pieces of uh bare right the blue and color yeah a little color so you can see all the heavies are there not a lot of white and actually here the white is gonna be calcite or barite and they're actually relatively light but it does make it look nice but here we've got lots of jaspers and agates and quartz in the middle so good signs looks like pretty good material we're gonna keep working it so the pressure's on this is my first flip from the crater of diamonds let's see if i can actually get a center out of this this material does definitely work different than what i'm used to but let's hope in the end it flips the same three two one look at that baby material is looking really good proved myself i proved myself i can do it so one tip that they told us is like diamond if it's a flat diamond sometimes they'll actually float out to the edges so if you like go in a spiral all and work your way all the way in you won't like over focus on the center i do find when i'm doing it i often get um my nice center and i get two little pockets on either side and it's usually probably the first sides i start rocking i get some that go out there that just won't come back in but also i'm dealing with far more volumes of heavy heavy yeah yeah well there's the clearest and shiniest piece in this center not sure if it's a diamond it doesn't seem to have the right size and shape shape for a diamond but looking at this center i see one piece flashing back at me and that's pretty don't think it's a diamond though now this is a chunk of bear right it's heavy just like diamonds and that's why it's in our center it's a slightly blue color though the camera's not really showing that and a little garnet down there all sorts of neat heavies but we want the really neat heavy well we have our first piece of spinel that black thing right in the center there so that's a good sign because they deposit right with the diamonds we don't see any diamonds again there's a piece of hematite or magnetite or iron stone [Applause] what is that see it through the camera lens there right in the center frank's just looking at the camera lens right now to see what i'm looking at oh that zooms in really far it does okay i believe it's quartz but it is shiny it's shiny okay let's take a camera away and have a look there's another piece of spinel right beside that big whitish yellow rock there's a piece of spinel another piece of bare right right beside it nice and blue love to see a diamond in a first flip rather than a later flip look at that that must be that uh bare right see the blue in the center of the screen there that's gotta be bare right nice beautiful beauty good jimmy piece i got frank looking through my screen of my camera right now because it magnifies so well frank this is the bin for the centers yeah [Music] a little bit more vigorous you want to really knock those there you go you want to really knock those heavies to the center my first uh gemsiv flip i use the commercial uh saruka the gem sieve that you can buy here at the park my second one i used my home built one i want to see if it would do just as well mine uses a soft flexible bottom this guy here uses a hard flat bottom i know my soft flexible one works really great when i'm doing the garnets but i want to see how it do for diamonds it seemed to do a perfect job nice great big center it you it takes about twice as much material so the center is about twice the size you can see that it's like you know perfectly centered in the in the circle here lots of heavies all around no visible diamonds yet but those will come in time we've gone through the two buckets of you know fine material that we sieved out now the centers look amazing this is exactly the right stuff that we want to be digging paul's over there digging more buckets so we can just go through more kindles over there sifting frank's over there so uh gem sieving we got a whole production line going here we're gonna find a diamond for sure it'll happen we do take the centers all out of every flip that's the heavies out of every flip we put them in one bucket and we will go back and we'll process them one more time so that we don't waste too much time while we're here in our limited dig time looking for diamonds we'll do that back of the camp after the park closes here we go frank's going for another beautiful piece of bear right in there another blue that's the blue right yep there's a barite vein just above us an actual vein you can go yeah great big piece of hematite there or magnetite can't tell the difference really unfortunately we're not seeing spinels no spinels that's not good that's a black uh gemstone that indicates you're on very very heavy material but still looking pretty good [Music] [Music] [Music] it is warm out here it is awesome i love this this reminds me of back home in the summer it's winter back home right now it's snowing it's cold this is the weather i like having fun kendall oh yeah it is a great day to dig diamonds i expected it to be a lot colder working in this water and it's not too bad having fun frank way too much fun paulie you having fun yeah and i'm having a blast i'm very fortunate to have dan with us today because he's been a great teacher on this trip so far i think because of him and frankie and yeah we'll be able to uh find a diamond so the hole i started this morning where i just put my shovel into a random spot apparently everyone wanted to start digging i don't know maybe they think i know what i'm doing i don't know but anyhow that hole has become big and what frank is saying is that it is looking good down there that there are some nice gravels coming out some nice gravels coming here coming out of here sitting right on the the lamp right the bedrock and it looks like it's possibly some stuff other people have missed well they've been digging or fresh stuff that have washed in and this is like crunchy gravel this is nice looking stuff so our chances of getting a diamond are increasing by the moment it's a team effort frank's digging paulie and kendall are sifting over there i'm just standing back looking good i will be gem sitting any second here that takes a lot of time it takes like 45 minutes until maybe tomorrow after our live show dan's a natural he even looks like a downliner i need it babe we need to get like a good picture your center might be slightly off to one side because of that but it'll it can still be a perfect you know concentration in one spot just off to one side and it's good to um we'll just take heavy centers for the most part it's good to take heavy centers anyway because they those diamonds can get covered by one piece of anything yeah oh you should try flipping it away from you not towards you it's real fun trust me yeah okay yeah here we go not bad it was it was uh it's sloppy pretty poor yeah it was pretty poor i'm gonna get a shot of you guys looking at that there look at that as a rock it would be so funny and rolling it'd be so funny if we did see a big diamond right there this is my third one for sure there'll be a diamond in it that was bad a little bad flipper only one two three we did we did paul it could have been a mess piece of hematite in mine like again another piece of iron stone iron stone right in the middle one or two diamonds for sure but what we're looking for is black sand i told you hematite that's black sand no garnish on this one nothing on my shell nothing honey you're gonna have to oh there's no more stuff i do like that it pops up like that not on top yeah the pants might be dirty a lot of gems sitting or surrounding how you guys doing doing pretty good grabbing our centers there must be a diamond in this bucket somewhere there has to be i know for sure i've shown about six but i put them in here so we can all share them now the crater of diamond state park has set it up so that you don't need all the equipment we have with us today they have these big wash pavilions with great big tubs of water with benches you can rent all the equipment right from the main office if you're not set up for diamond mining you can still come here and have a blast looking for diamonds you can just walk the surface looking for the glints most diamonds are found that way actually just by seeing them laying on the surface and the people from the crater of diamond state park here they come out here and till the ground every once in a while they actually bring big machines up here turn everything over so there's always fresh material on the surface the best time to come out here hunting diamonds is right after they've tilled it and there's been a rainfall because then the diamonds glow in the sun on the surface and of course they have all the instructions of how to do it and people here to help you out as well all around the park they have these shovels jammed in the ground where big big diamonds have been found this was a 16.3 carat looks like a white diamond there's white brown and yellow here and all around the park you see these shovels where the big big diamonds have been found well we've been going for hours now we haven't seen any diamonds yet but we've got lots of material to go back through once we get back to the camp i just uh dug from a different spot and frank says the material looks great he's just looking through his first flip of that new spot right now oh i'm starting to get tired though this is hard in the back yep lots of lots of heavies in this one eh you got lots of it it's good and you actually do have some spinels right here it's a nice vanilla if you come from this other side right down in there it's got some nice shine okay i'll have to move around to see that i see something green in there too that's probably epidural yep as i believe what what uh where is the spinel um i'll have to get close up for that right here if you get it right at the right angle it really shines it's kind of the same luster as a diamond honestly excellent i'll take your word for it let's pull out the close-up camera maybe it'll see it my old eyes can't see nothing anymore look at that epidote crystal that is beautiful i love green green and blue are my favorite gemstones for sure although today i think you know clear yellow or brown would be my favorite yeah probably give me something brown that's for sure ready here comes the pulley all right nice flip paul i think that's the best one i've seen you do so far oh clear mm-hmm big little chunk of quartz did i just find a diamond they're excited about something did i just find a diamond did you find a diamond did i find a diamond did you find a diamond

Channel: Dan Hurd

Views: 569,500

Keywords: prospecting, mining, gold, rock hunting, rock hound, rock collecting, video, finding gold, gemstones, gem stone, gems, treasure hunting, diamonds, crater of diamonds, arkansas, that camping couple, finding diamonds, plaer diamonds, kimberlite, digging, raw diamonds, rough diamonds

Id: ZhR6fW3KDBg

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 05 2022