💎 Arkansas Stones & Fossils
Arkansas is one of America's richest rockhounding states. It has the world's only public diamond field where you keep what you find, the quartz crystal mines of the Ouachita Mountains, the strange igneous minerals of Magnet Cove, and fossils from ancient seas and coal swamps.
🗺 Arkansas sites
- Crater of Diamonds State Park, Murfreesboro: Public diamond-hunting site where you keep what you find (fee)
- Mount Ida: quartz crystal mines (Montgomery County): Fee-dig quartz mines around the 'Quartz Crystal Capital of the World'
- Crystal Vista, Ouachita National Forest: Free Forest Service quartz-collecting site, personal use only
- Magnet Cove igneous complex (Hot Spring County): Lodestone, brookite, rutile and kimzeyite. Mostly private land
- Mauldin Mountain (Montgomery County): World-class green wavellite, plus variscite
- Mona Lisa mine, Little Porter Mountain (Polk County): Arkansas turquoise. The site was reclaimed in 1989–91
- Bauxite (Saline County): Historic bauxite (aluminum ore) district
- Hot Springs: novaculite whetstone quarries: Arkansas novaculite ('Arkansas stone') whetstones
- Greers Ferry Lake (Corps of Engineers): Corps lake: removing rocks, minerals or fossils needs written permission
- Northwest Arkansas Ozarks (Pitkin & Fayetteville): Mississippian marine fossils: crinoids, brachiopods, bryozoans
- Arkansas River Valley (Pennsylvanian coal measures): Fossil plants: Lepidodendron, Stigmaria, Calamites
- Sevier County: Arkansaurus discovery site: Early Cretaceous dinosaur, found in 1972
State symbols
Arkansas named quartz its state mineral, diamond its state gem and bauxite its state rock in 1967.
Quartz of the Ouachitas
The Ouachita Mountains around Mount Ida and Hot Springs are among the world's great sources of clear quartz crystals.
Phosphates
Aluminum phosphates fill fractures in chert and novaculite. The best-known sites are Mauldin Mountain and Avant (Garland County). Some blue-green 'turquoise' from Mauldin Mountain was actually planerite.
Magnet Cove minerals
Magnet Cove is a roughly 100-million-year-old (Cretaceous) igneous complex. It is famous for natural magnets (lodestone), brookite and rutile, and it is the type locality of kimzeyite garnet.
Fossils
Northwest Arkansas's Mississippian Pitkin Limestone and Fayetteville Shale hold marine fossils. Pennsylvanian rocks of the Arkansas River Valley preserve coal-swamp plants.
%201.jpg?width=240)
.jpg?width=240)
%20(Raney%20Creek%20Member%2C%20Slade%20Formation%2C%20Upper%20Mississippian%3B%20Bighill%20Mountain%20roadcut%2C%20south%20of%20Bighill%2C%20Kentucky%2C%20USA)%202%20(43924000140).jpg?width=240)
🦖 Arkansaurus
Arkansaurus fridayi is an ornithomimosaur ("ostrich-mimic" dinosaur) from Early Cretaceous rocks of Sevier County. It is known only from a foot, found by Joe Friday in 1972. It became the Arkansas state dinosaur in 2017. The original fossil is held by the University of Arkansas, and it is not something you can collect. Source.
⛏ Rockhounding tips & rules
Crater of Diamonds
This is the world's only diamond-bearing site open to the public where you keep what you find. An entry fee applies. Diamonds here are often small, rounded and metallic-looking. Many visitors find them by surface searching after rain.
National Forest (Ouachita)
Casual collecting of small amounts of common minerals by hand is generally allowed for personal, non-commercial use. Digging beyond small hand tools, machinery and selling are not allowed. Crystal Vista is the designated free quartz site. Check with the ranger district first, because mining claims can restrict collecting.
USDA Forest Service: Ouachita NF rockhounding · USDA Forest Service: Collecting on National Forest lands (PDF)
Corps of Engineers lakes
On Corps lands, including Greers Ferry Lake, removing natural formations, mineral deposits or paleontological resources is prohibited without written permission from the District Commander.
Private land & fee mines
Most of Magnet Cove and many quartz and phosphate sites are private. Ask permission, or use the commercial fee-dig mines around Mount Ida.
USDA Forest Service: Ouachita NF rockhounding · Wikipedia: Magnet Cove
Fossils on federal land
Common invertebrate and plant fossils may be collected in small amounts for personal use on National Forest land. They can't be sold or traded, and vertebrate fossils need a permit.
USDA Forest Service: Collecting on National Forest lands (PDF)
Rules change, so always check with the land manager before collecting. This is not legal advice. Sources: Arkansas Geological Survey · Arkansas Geological Survey: Gemstones · Arkansas State Parks: Crater of Diamonds · USDA Forest Service: Ouachita NF rockhounding · USDA Forest Service: Collecting on National Forest lands (PDF) · 36 CFR § 327.14 (Corps of Engineers public property) · Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Mona Lisa Mine · Mindat: Mauldin Mountain quarries · Wikipedia: Arkansaurus · Wikipedia: Magnet Cove · Arkansas Secretary of State: State symbols.