Opal-AN (Hyalite Opal) (''Blood Vessel Opal'')

Item Description

Here we have an attractive example of what used to be called "Hyalite Opal", but with a different twist than anything we can remember seeing for the material. This piece dates from a discovery in January 2019 at the Étienne Mine, which is a small and fairly new locality in San Luis Potosi. These piece are being mined by a friend of ours who has been working for the past few years by hand to extract them from the deposit. It has produced some of the most distinctive and attractive pieces of what are now classified as Opal-AN (a variety of Opal). Opal-AN refers to the habit of the material, which is composed of tiny spherical aggregates (called nanospheres) measuring to approximately 5 nm. The distinctive aspect of these nanospheres is that they are differently-sized, so they form the "bead"-like groups. This piece hosts gemmy to translucent, spherical groups or "balls" of Hyalite which range from colorless to white to very pale lavender, but the upper portion of the piece hosts rarely seen "Blood Vessel Opal", which hosts small inclusions of iron oxide, creating deep orange and red hues, that resemble capillaries. We have photographed the little "blood vessels" with a Canon MP-E 65 mm macro lens to better illustrate the quality. Opal-AN is known for being brilliantly fluorescent, and this piece shows a fantastic green hue when exposed to SW UV light (the more colorless areas show stronger fluorescence). These specimens are very limited on the market, and certainly worth picking up for anybody who collects Mexican minerals, worldwide Opals or fluorescent minerals. Don't miss out on this beautiful eye-catching display specimen of this attractive material.