Looking at this breathtaking gemstone, one thing is clear: nature is amazing. This fine specimen, with its clumps of cloud-like formation and its shimmering background streaked with luminescent colors, looks like it has an entire nebula trapped inside it. The gorgeous stone is not an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium, and other ionized gases, however, but just an ordinary opal.
Listed as a “Very Fine American Contra Luz Opal” on the auction house Bonhams' website, the stone was mined in Opal Butte, Oregon and sold for around $20,000 last May. According to the listing's description, “the clear, transparent crystal body [has] a fine, firey play-of-color that is gem quality. The piece has a botryoidal jasper formation which forms a unique inclusion.” With a compact size of 46.0 x 44.0 x 10.1mm and a light weight of 119 carats, we imagine that the opal would be perfect as a stunning, out-of-this-world pendant.
Bonhams Website
via [Lost at E Minor], [Sploid]
