A birthday trip turned into a gem of a day when a woman dug up a rare brown diamond weighing almost three carats.
Raynae Madison was sifting through dirt with her family when she spotted the unusual stone glinting in the soil.
What looked like a dull rock turned out to be a 2.79-carat diamond – one of the biggest found this year.
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The dazzling discovery was made on 13 September at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, US, where the family had stopped off during a weekend birthday outing, as reported by What’s The Jam.
Armed only with a cheap beach digging kit and sand sifters from a dollar store, they started searching near the Prospector Trailhead on the park’s 37.5-acre search field.
After filling a few buckets, Raynae noticed the shiny oblong stone while sifting through the dirt.
She said: “At first I thought it looked really neat, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
“I honestly thought it was too big to be a diamond.”
Her family rushed the find to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where staff confirmed it was a whopper – weighing in at 2.79 carats.
Park bosses say it’s the third-biggest stone logged in 2025, topping a 2.3-carat beauty found earlier this summer.
More than 400 diamonds have already been registered at the park this year, several of them tipping the scales at over two carats.
Emma O’Neal, park interpreter at Crater of Diamonds, explained: “Brown diamonds from the Crater occur due to a process called plastic deformation, which creates structural defects during a diamond’s formation or movement in magma.
“These defects reflect red and green light, combining to make the diamond appear brown.
“2025 has been a great year for large diamond finds! So far, we have registered four diamonds weighing over two-carats.”
The striking chocolate-brown gem, with its distinctive markings, has since been named the William Diamond after Raynae’s young nephew.
The site is world-famous for producing incredible treasures – from giant historical gems to lucky strikes by everyday visitors.
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