IN THE ROUGH

Visitor to Arkansas State Park Finds Whopper of a Diamond

It took Noreen Wredberg only 40 minutes of searching to stumble across the jellybean-sized rock.

A visitor to Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park discovered a 4.38-carat yellow diamond in September, the state parks department said. Noreen Wredberg, of Granite Bay, California, visited the park with her husband just a few days after it had been hit by an inch of rain, which sometimes washes away the topsoil covering buried treasures. A parks spokesperson noted that many of the Crater of Diamonds’ precious stones—75,000 since 1906—have been discovered above ground. Wredberg’s diamond was described by the park superintendent who examined it as “about the size of a jellybean, with a pear shape and lemonade color.” Wredberg will be allowed to keep the gem. Arkansas is the only state in the country that has a diamond mine open to public visitors, according to a parks official.