Tag: opals
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ABC’s The Science Show: Opals on Mars?
ABC’s “The Science Show” has a fascinating segment about the opals of Australia. 90% of the opals on Earth come from Australia. Many come from the cities of Lightning Ridge and Coober Pedy. They formed about 120 million years ago when the conditions were perfect for opal creation. There’s also a discussion about the process…
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Throwback Thursday #216: Opal Hunting at the Spencer, Idaho Mini-Mine
For this week, we have an article written by ESCONI board member Andy Jansen. Andy took a trip to the “Opal Capital of America” in 2019 and wrote this interesting article for the newsletter.
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Opulent Opal
Jewellery World in Australia has a post about opals. Opals are beautiful precious stones found all over the world. Ethiopia along with Lightning Ridge in Australia are very famous for black opals. The Roman scholar Pliny observed in 79 AD, “Some opali carry such a play within them that they equal the deepest and richest…
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History of Lightning Ridge
Anyone who likes opals has surely heard of Lightning Ridge a mineral locality in Australia known for some of the best opals in the world, especially rare black opals. This page is all about the history of Lightning Ridge. Pretty colored stones were first collected in 1873, but it wasn’t until 1887 when the first…
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Opal Hunting at the Spencer, Idaho Mini-Mine by Andy Jansen
Rock hunting opportunities were dancing through my mind when I was requested to go to Idaho Falls, ID for a business meeting the third week of July. Should I go for fossils, minerals, or both? I was scouring websites for options that would be within a couple hours drive from Idaho Falls in the likely…
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Sparkly, opal-filled fossils reveal new dinosaur species
National Geographic has a story about an opalized dinosaur fossil discovered in Australia’s Lightning Ridge. The fossils were found from a mine near Wee Warra in New South Wales and belong to a newly named dinosaur species called Weewarrasaurus pobeni. The animal was a herbivore about the size of a Labrador retriever. It lived about…
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Scott’s Rock Trips
Interesting web site displaying photos and descriptions of this person's rock hunting trips. The latest trip was to an open pit mine on Rainbow Ridge in Virgin Valley Nevada for opals. (via geology.com)
