Opal

Opal is believed to enhance creativity and originality. It encourages honesty and self-expression. It is considered a protective stone that absorbs negative energy and reflects it back to the source. When placed on the Heart chakra, it is said to release emotional blocks and allow for truer, deeper love connections. It can be worn, carried, or placed in the home.

Opal, with its captivating play-of-color and unique properties, is valued based on several distinctive considerations. Here are the key factors that influence the value of opal:

1.Color: The richness, variation, clarity, and brightness of the colors greatly influence its value.

2.Clarity: Presence of inclusions can impact the gem's appearance and thereby its value.

3.Cut: Ideal opal has high domes, even proportions, and a good polish, but the cut can also consider thickness and symmetry.

4.Carat: Weight affects value, with highest values usually given to gems between five and ten carats.

5.Special Considerations: These include the directionality of color flashes, the gem's individual character and patterns, and whether it's been cut to have a face.

6.Treatments and Enhancements: Synthetic or treated opal generally holds less value than natural ones.

Remember that personal appeal can significantly influence the perceived value of an opal, making buying an opal a truly unique experience.

Opal is not only a popular stone in rings, necklaces, and earrings, but also has several commercial uses. The stone is ground into an abrasive powder. It is also an ingredient in some ceramics.

Opal was associated with the Divine, supernatural, and magical in many ancient cultures and civilizations. The stone was a symbol of love for ancient Romans, while the Greeks thought the stone was created from the tears of Zeus. Generally, the stone was considered to bring good luck. It is the birthstone of October.

The lattice of spheres of opal that cause interference with light is several hundred times larger than the fundamental structure of crystalline silica. As a mineraloid, no unit cell describes the structure of opal. Nevertheless, opals can be roughly divided into those that show no signs of crystalline order (amorphous opal) and those that show signs of the beginning of crystalline order, commonly termed cryptocrystalline or microcrystalline opal. Dehydration experiments and infrared spectroscopy have shown that most of the H2O in the formula of SiO2·nH2O of opals is present in the familiar form of clusters of molecular water. Isolated water molecules, and silanols, structures such as SiOH, generally form a lesser proportion of the total and can reside near the surface or in defects inside the opal. The structure of low-pressure polymorphs of anhydrous silica consist of frameworks of fully corner bonded tetrahedra of SiO4. The higher temperature polymorphs of silica cristobalite and tridymite are frequently the first to crystallize from amorphous anhydrous silica, and the local structures of microcrystalline opals also appear to be closer to that of cristobalite and tridymite than to quartz. The structures of tridymite and cristobalite are closely related and can be described as hexagonal and cubic close-packed layers. It is therefore possible to have intermediate structures in which the layers are not regularly stacked.