Go to the Extremes With This Quiz on Extremophiles10 Questions
Kristi Blokhin/ ShutterstockCrater of Diamonds State Park, Arkansas
For just the price of a visitor’s pass ($10 for adults, $6 for children), you can keep any diamond you find at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park. And it’s not completely inconceivable you will unearth one: Park officials report that one or two diamonds are found here every day. The 37-acre diamond search field is what’s left of a lava tube of a 3 billion-year-old volcano, after explosive activity in the ancient volcano forced a litter of sparkling rocks nearly all the way to the Earth’s surface, and erosion did the rest. Now, casual park visitors — and serious treasure hunters — arrive every day to dig, sift, and rinse their way to a possible uncut gem.
The largest diamond ever found in the United States (40.23 carats) was unearthed here in 1924. After several failed attempts to establish a commercial diamond mine on the 911-acre site, Arkansas bought the land in 1972 to create the state park. Since its opening, more than 30,000 diamonds have been uncovered at Crater of Diamonds State Park, as have thousands of lesser gems such as agates, amethysts, jasper, and quartz. In April 2022, one of the park’s cast of regular gem hunters uncovered a 2.38-carat diamond, which he sold for more than $10,000. Go to the Extremes With This Quiz on Extremophiles
2 pts1/10
Which of these flowers can grow in the Arctic tundra?SunflowersPoppyLavenderTulipEvgeny Kuzhilev/ Shutterstock
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