Lightning Ridge has many different opal fields or mines in and around it. The opal from each mine and area can differ from black opal to white opal and even grey opal. The opal mines in Lightning R...
You can feel the ‘buzz in the air’! Justin has just received news from his mining crew at Lightning Ridge that they have struck opal. Justin is on his way in his 4WD to see what his mining crew ha...
Opal fossils are opals formed in the cavity left underground by an animal that has perished and left the shape of its former self to be filled by silica spheres over many years. The rain that falls...
Natural opal is the term used for opal that has naturally formed in the ground in areas where silica is in high concentration through the natural fissures and cavities that have been formed undergr...
For more information on dopping opal and mearning to cut, please visit our Opal Cutting Guide.
The Maze @ Nettleton’s LookoutWell, I’ve clocked up a few miles in the past week with a trip to Lightning Ridge. Being winter, the weather was gorgeous with sunny warm days but beware when the sun...
There are many types of rough opal from many parts of the world. Rough opal comes in many forms, shapes and sizes. In Ethiopia, opal comes in a nobby-like form that is usually brownish in tint. The...
The Lightning Ridge gem show went off without a hitch, the sun was bright but cold at night, with many people coming from all over. The all-around feeling that the gem show had was a nice easy goin...
Lightning Ridge is a tiny opal-mining town about 70 kilometres south of the Queensland border in New South Wales and 700 kilometres north-west of Sydney. The city is situated on the edge of an anci...