A French tourist discovered a massive 7.46-carat diamond after he stopped off at an Arkansas state park during a road trip this month.
Julien Navas, from Paris, found the massive rock on the surface of Crater of Diamonds State Park while scouring the 37.5-acre search area on Jan. 11, state officials said.
He was in the US to witness a rocket launch in Florida before he had plans with a buddy to check out Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
But on the way, he learned about the Razorback State’s world famous state park known for its bling and wanted to make a pit stop, park officials said.
Navas, who has previously panned for gold and searched for ammonite fossils, rented a basic diamond hunting kit and began digging through mud after pounding rain hit the area days earlier.
“That is back-breaking work so by the afternoon I was mainly looking on top of the ground for anything that stood out,” Navas said.
After several more hours of searching and picking up possible treasures, he went to the park’s center to find out if he actually possessed a real prize.
A deep chocolate-brown marble-like object turned out to be a 7.46 carat diamond – the largest discovery at the park since 2020 and eight largest in the park’s history since it opened in 1972.
The diamond is about the size of a candy gumdrop, the park said.
“I am so happy!” he reportedly said when he realized the pricey item he snatched up. “All I can think about is telling my fiancée what I found.”
He named the jewel Carine Diamond after his partner and plans to get the stone cut into two diamonds – one for his fiancée and the other for his daughter.
More than 75,000 diamonds have been scooped up at the Crater of Diamonds State Park since the first sparkling treasures were discovered by a farmer decades ago.
The largest diamond ever recovered in the US was spotted in 1924 during a mining operation on the land that later became the state park.
