This black opal has a lot of red play-of-color, which is considered highly desirable. Courtesy Mariora, Surfer’s Paradise, Australia. Opals are often divided into types based on background color. Even though there are many different categories for …

Opal is the product of seasonal rains that drenched dry ground in regions such as Australia’s semi-desert “Outback.” It is known for its unique display of flashing rainbow colors.

Black opal: Translucent to opaque, with play-of-color against a black or other dark background. Fire opal: Transparent to translucent, with brown, yellow, orange, or red bodycolor. This material—which often doesn’t show play-of-color—is also known as “Mexican opal.”

Oct 15, 2013 · One famous black opal is the 700 carat stone Napoleon gave his wife and Empress Josephine de Meauharnais called “The Burning of Troy” because of its red flashes against a black background color. A more affordable type of opal has a white to medium gray background color, called white opal.

Opal shows a flashing display of different colors on a white, black, or gray background. Fire opals are usually orangy red.

Sep 20, 2019 · Black opal – a dark body color that generally exhibits bold colors of blue, green, red and orange. White opal – a white to medium gray body color exhibits the blue, green, red and orange hues in a softer tone.

This discovery has yielded mostly dark and black opal, along with some white and crystal opal. Although it is only now being reported, the deposit has been actively producing since 2013. It is set in a distinct opal-bearing layer in a mountainous area at an altitude of around 3,000 meters.

Black opals have been reported (Mayers, 19471, but they are probably the result of heat treatment (Sinkankas, 1959). GENESIS OF MEXICAN OPAL: MULTIPLE CYCLES OF GROWTH After carefully studying several Mexican opals with included acicular crystals, the authors noted that in almost all cases there seemed to be a shell

He marveled that this kaleidoscopic gem encompassed the red of ruby, the green of emerald, the yellow of topaz, the blue of sapphire, and the purple of amethyst. Many cultures have credited opal with supernatural origins and powers.

Sep 30, 2015 · LIGHTNING RIDGE AND BLACK OPAL. Our first stop was Lightning Ridge, the traditional source for fine-quality black opal. The Lightning Ridge area is located in New South Wales, just south of the border from Queensland (figure 3). Opal was first discovered here in …