The name "opal" is derived from the Greek word "Opallios," meaning "perceiving a change of color." This phenomenon, known as play-of-color, occurs when light interacts with the silica spheres ...

Compared to common opal, which is usually one color, black opal exhibits many different colors contrasted by a dark body tone. Frederick: It's simply the most stunning gemstone on the planet.

Picture a stone that absorbs the soft colors of dawn a rainbow short-lived splendor and the strange gleam of the moon It a stone that when you hold it with your bare hands has a vibrating play of colo ...

"Every opal is completely different," says Emily Amey, a New York-based jewellery designer who sources many of her opals from Australia. "Different colours, different patterns, they are just ...