ROCK & GEM BUSINESS PROFILE: DOWN TO EARTH OPALS

It's hard to think of opals without thinking of Australia.

- AUDREY PAVIA

Opal is the national gemstone of Australia, and with good reason. Australia is the largest source of gem-quality opals in the world and Lightning Ridge in the New South Wales outback is where the rare natural black opal is found. The region is also famous for ancient freshwater mollusks, turtles, crustaceans, crocodiles, and land-based dinosaur opalized fossils.

Opals are unique gemstones. They display a distinctive dynamic play of color caused by a silica dioxide microstructure that both diffracts and refracts light into the colors of the visible spectrum. Colors seen in opals are because of interference of light waves, so the observable play of color depends on the nature of the light where the opal is being viewed.

GETTING STARTED AT LIGHTNING RIDGE

In the early 1990s, a young woman named Vicki Bokros, who grew up on Australia's Gold Coast, fell in love with opal. After a chance encounter with a gemstone dealer where she saw a stunning collection of opals, Vicki set out to Lightning Ridge to seek her fortune.

At only 19 years old, Vicki's goal was to stay at Lightning Ridge for a few weeks, buy opals, then head home to process and sell them. But her plans changed when a rough opal nobby purchased with her last $500 revealed a stone that became the famous 'Southern Princess' - a 5.40-carat oval-shaped black opal with a rare ribbon pattern.

The sale of this opal enabled Vicki to buy a beautiful sandstone miner's camp on the fields, where she settled and became an opal miner, cutter, and wholesaler.

This was not a traditional job for a young woman. The small, male-dominated mining town was a tough place, but it provided the perfect setting to learn everything there was to know about opals, especially black opals.