Australian Opal Ring are blessed with an unusual, iridescent beauty and none more so than those found in Australia. As the primary source of this sumptuous gemstone where around 95 percent of the worlds bounty is found, the Australian outback provides the perfect harsh, dry conditions in which opals thrive. While there are many mining towns throughout the country, the four main ones are Andamooka, Coober Pedy, Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs.
Not only are the finest opals found in Australia, but the best cutters are also located here; an essential factor in calculating their quality and ultimate worth. Other ingredients which go into determining the value of the stone are the colour play, brilliance, body tone, faults and the class of opal. Single opals are considerably more expensive than doublets or triplets which are an assembled stone which are only a small part natural opal.
Body tone refers to the shade of the opal which ranges from black through to white. The darker hues are more sought after and consequently dearer because the colour play of opals shows up better against these backgrounds. Black opals are the rarest of all, making them even more precious.
This "play of colour" is what makes opals so appealing and the better this appears the more valuable the stone tends to be. It is caused by diffraction of light through the different shaped spheres of silica, of which the opal is made up. For example light passing through the larger spheres may appear red, while that passing along the smaller spheres could seem blue or green.
Derived from the Greek word "opallos" meaning "optical change", the opal is classified as an amorphous non-crystalline gem mineral. It is made up of liquid silica deposits formed by decayed vegetation and creatures. It is not a particularly hard gemstone with only a hardness rating of between 5.5 and 6.5 on the Mohs scale (diamonds are a 10) and should be kept away from oil and ultrasonic cleaners.
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