OPAL-PORN

18 Various Kinds of Opals  

When most people think of an opal, they might think of a milky-colored stone containing a rainbow of stripes or flecks inside it.  What many people don’t know is that they are incredibly diverse in appearance, and are not actually minerals.  Opals are a solid, amorphous form of silica, and are classified as “mineraloids”.  Like other mineraloids, such as amber, pearl, and obsidian, they lack structural order, or “crystallinity”. 

From the top:

Black Opals

Cat’s Eye Opals

Dendritic Opals

Flamingo Opals

Peruvian Pink Opals

Zebra Opals

Leopard Opals

Yowah Nut and Koroit Opals (both have the same characteristics - they merely come from two different areas).

Brown Opals

Ethiopian Honeycomb Opals

Green Opals (Serbian, Tanzanian, and Brazilian)

Peruvian Blue Opals

Matrix Opals

Landscape Opals (Andean and Australian)

Mexican Fire Opals

Crystal Opals

Australian Boulder Opals

Ethiopian Ribbon Opals

Can we just take a minute here to appreciate opals?

From top left:

Boulder opal.

Ethiopian opal.

Black crystal opal (considered the “Holy grail” of opals).

Andamooka matrix opal.

Yowah nut opal.

Mexican fire opal.

Mezezo opal.

White harlequin opal.

Opals from Brazil