BOULDER OPAL - Australia
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BOULDER OPAL
Veins of precious opal in sandstone
Quilpie, Queensland, Australia
Sandstone with opal veins is called ‘boulder opal’. This is a small, but very good example.
Precious opal owes its beauty to the remarkable play of changing colours. This is due to the reflection and scattering of light from minute, uniformly-sized spheres of silica that make up the stone. The colours are not caused by a pigment or impurity; the closely-packed spheres form a ‘diffraction grating’ that splits white light into the colours of the spectrum.
Click on a picture for a larger image
Click on a picture for a larger image
Size: 4.5 x 4 x 2.5 centimetres
Weight: 79 grams
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