A twelve year old boy from North Carolina found a diamond when vacationing in an Arkansas park. CNN reported that Michael Detlaff was on vacation with his family on July 31 when he found a 5.16 carat diamond in The Arkansas' Crater of Diamond State Park's "diamond search area."
CNN reported that the park is the only diamond producing site on the globe that allows the public in.
"Visitors can dig for diamonds in the park's 37.5-acre plowed field, which was a diamond mining site before it became a state park in 1972," reported CNN.
At the park, visitors are allowed to keep the diamonds they find which means that twelve-year-old Detlaff got to keep the diamond which he named, "God's Glory Diamond."
The diamond is estimated to be worth $12,000 to $15,000 after it is cut and polished, according to Mining.com.
"What they tell you you're going to find is these little diamonds [that are] so small," Michael said to ABC News. "I kind of expected to maybe get a couple of those.We were probably there about 10 minutes and I was looking around on the ground and found it on top. It was very glassy. Very smooth."
The diamond is the eight largest brown diamond to be found and certified by park staff, reported the AP. Michael said it was the brown hue of the diamond that stood out.
"It looked like what I envisioned a diamond to look like," he said to ABC News. "It was kind of a bit of a honeyish-brown tint."
Michael added, "When I brought this rock out of the bag the guy who's there, he just went bug-eyed and he said, 'Hang on a second. I need to take this to the back room. So then people start coming from everywhere and they're like, 'Oh yeah. It's a big diamond.'"
Michael said to ABC News that if he would probably cut and sell it if it' s that valuable and added, "If it's not, well, then it's a souvenir."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
