Throughout history Opal has been regarded as the stone of good fortune. Late in the 19th and early in the 20th century, for commercial reasons, there was a proliferation of damaging reports that opal as an unlucky stone. These were based upon a misinterpretation. In Roman times the gem was carried as a good luck…
Opal is Australia’s National Gemstone, with each of Australia’s major opal fields having its own distinctive geology, opal types, fossils, landscape, natural and cultural heritage. This panoply of treasures, unique in the world, is the consequence of a freakish combination of geological conditions (Rey 2013). Gemstone laboratories and industry participants, educators and opal enthusiasts look…