Crystal WELO Opal from Ethiopia

This is a natural untreated crystal opal from the new opal area in Welo, Ethiopia. It's a hydrophane stone, which means that it turns to glass clear crystal if you put it into water and turns to the shown state again while drying out. It's a quiet stable material so it should not crack in the future.

The Welo Opals are cheap at the moment, cause it's a new find in Africa but with great color and very stable material. You can see the rising prices month for month, so this could be the last chance to get it that cheap. The opal layer occurs in a very soft layer of rock that is quite high in the Ethiopian highlands and since it is so soft, the layers are being easily and quickly mined with hand tools. Unfortunately, that means that the opal will probably be mined out very quickly. Most African deposits of gems and minerals are very quickly exploited and so lots of new prospecting is being done in this very remote and difficult area to find more similar materials.

About this opal:

This stone shows nice colors in a directional flashy way. The color flashes quickly over the surface and through the stone with some broad patterns on top and on the bottom. The color shows better than in the video, cause you look with both eyes anstead of one camera lens. So you might see a different color with you left eye than with your right. That means you will see more color at the same time.

It's perfect polished all the way, including the back.