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BASIC 4
3. Where does it come from?
Black Opal.
About an 8hours drive from the Gold Coast, there is a small but famous town called "Lightning Ridge" This town is the only place on the earth that produces the precious Black Opal.
The first recorded Black Opal found in Lightning Ridge was in 1873. But until 1903, people were not aware of its value. From that time till now, Lightning Ridge is the only place you can find this magnificent gem.
Some people might think Black Opal has black colour(?), so they are typically amazed by these beautiful colours it actually has. Why is it called "Black Opal"? We start this point.
These pictures shows two different types of Black Opal rock. The left is called "Nobby" and the right is called "Seam". You can see the left stone (Nobby) has a white or light grey appearance. When the stone is washed and clipped they reveal a black potch (like black line in the right stone) inside along with any colour bar. Yes, this is the reason we call this type of opal Black Opal. Too help you understand , let's see another set of pictures.
These pictures are taken from three different directions of one stone. The left is from the face, middle is from the back and right is from the side. As you saw in previously in chapter of Boulder Opal, you can find a black backing (called potch) on the opal. This is the main reason why it's given it's name, Black Opal. But we can't say every black opal has this black backing. We explained here, as simple as we can. So the proper definition of the Black Opal is " the opal which has the colours with a black or a grey base." If you are very lucky, you can find the Black Opal which has different colours on both side (we call this kind of Black Opal "Reversible").
Compare with the white opal which we talked about before, you might be aware that the Black Opal has more colours and brightness.
We will talk into more details about the definition of Black Opal in ADVANCED.
Let's go to the next page and talk about the opal as jewellery.
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