The Black Opal - Simply Magnificent

 Australia's Governor General, the Honourable Bill Hayden AC, named the opal as Australia's national gemstone on 27th July 1993. Of all Australia's opal, black opal is the most exotic, treasured and looked for. Around 95% of world's supply come from Lightning Ridge in New South Wales or "The Ridge" as it is known locally. I first travelled to "The Ridge" in 1999, it was a year of good rains and even in the summer the countryside appeared to have a green tinge. The road and surrounding plains are relentlessly flat marked occasionally with a distant farmhouse or shed. A contrast to later visits following eight years of drought meant that some children and dogs had grown up never knowing rain. Located 8 hours drive North West of Sydney near New South Wales border with Queensland, Lightning Ridge is less a ridge than an ever so slight rise of ground swelling out of Australia's wide brown plains. Sparsely vegetated with scruffy eucalyptus and native g...

  Black Opals and opal jewelry have been adored since antiquity. The Roman Pliny talks often about the magnificence of opals, and later even the great William Shakespeare had his characters discuss them. They were talking about opals and in those days the Australian black opal hadn't even been found. But today the black opal is a symbol of beauty in nature. When people around the world talk about the magnificence of opal they are almost always talking about Australian black opal. What are we talking about when we mean black opal? Without discussing crystalline structures and all that gemology jargon let's just think about how it compares with other types. When you look at a black opal you will see that it has a black or very dark base. It is just as if you had a glass of black paint. That's the black base that I am talking about. Then you put in some bright colored pieces of plastic. Let's say you put in some blues and some reds and some yellows. Now we are talking abo...