A lovely glass bead like group of spherical, gemmy, lustrous, colorless Hyalite Opal (“Blood Vessel Opal”) which are included with small amounts of iron oxide to create the thin reddish-orange “blood vessel”-like lines that not only give the piece color, but character as well. The front/display side of the specimen is in good shape, and there’s even a bit of attached matrix on the back, which is not common for this material. Only minor rough spots here and there, and very worthwhile for the material, better than most we’ve seen.
At the beginning of 2016 a friend of ours started working a claim with a few of the locals in the state of San Luis Potosi for this fine quality Hyalite Opal. It's very exciting to see specimens of this calibre coming out of the ground, as most of the Opal from this area is not nearly as attractive or fine quality as the pieces in this lot. I apologize for not having a more specific locality, but our friend doesn't want to divulge the information yet as he is trying to keep it under wraps until he feels that he was able to collect everything.
Our friend dubbed some of the colored material “blood vessel” Opal due to the interesting red/orange “capillary”-esque lines that can be seen in many of the specimens. Essentially, the Opals themselves are colorless, but minute inclusions of what I’m assuming is iron oxide have created not only beautiful internal color, but the thin “blood vessel” patterns.
Like most Hyalite specimens, these new pieces from Mexico show a brilliant glowing green fluorescence under SW UV light.
Finally, for years this material was referred to as "Hyalite" Opal, but is now listed as a variety of Opal called Opal-AN. It is now defined specifically as an amorphous (often colorless) form of Opal that is found in spherical aggregates, which are often intergrown or stacked with a "bead"-like appearance. For reference, mindat.org states that: "The "A" in the name stands for amorphous; the subscript "N" is to imply its structure is network-like similar to silica glass; however, it still contains about 3-8% water".
Locality: San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Specimen Size: 4.6 x 4.1 x 2.6 cm (miniature)
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