For thousands of years, humans have mined the earth for precious metals and gems. One gemstone that continues to be in demand and fascinate people is the opal.
Precious opal has a beautiful iridescence that make it highly desirable and very valuable. And among the the types of opal (white, gray, green, black), black is considered the rarest.
This miner in Australia recently unearthed a spectacular black opal and shared a video of the “unveiling.”
Although Coober Pedy is the most well known area for mining opal, this miner pulled this particular piece from a mine in Queensland.
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The miner told Viralhog:
“I am a female boulder opal miner in outback Queensland. In this video, I share one of the most amazing moments that I get to experience with my team; exposing an opal and being the first person on the planet to gaze upon its natural beauty.”
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“To find, extract and split a raw boulder opal is simply like no other experience. At our ethically sustainable mining site, we split boulder opal along the opal vein running though ironstone rock every day, if we’re lucky. This boulder opal that we split open has gem grade black opal inside.”
According to Wikipedia, in the Middle Ages, opal was considered a good luck charm and to have magical properties because of its multiple colors. It was believed to “possess all the virtues of each gemstone whose color was represented in the color spectrum of the opal.” And oddly enough, it was also believed to magically grant invisibility.
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But the opal’s association with great luck changed in the 1800s when a novel by Sir Walter Scott was released. In his book, Anne of Geierstein, a Baroness wears an opal talisman; she dies after a drop of holy water falls onto the gem. From that point forward opals were associated primarily with bad luck and death.
However, when you see this beautiful stone, I wasn’t associating it with anything negative. It’s simply beautiful.
Watch the miner crack open the brown exterior to reveal the stunning opal inside.
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