The Grace Opal brothers (worldclassopal.net & Kimberleyopal.com) AKA, Lochy and Shannon, set out one beautiful Coober Pedy evening to try their luck at blacklighting. Australian opal and Coober Pedy opal in particular is famous for it's flourescence under ultra violet light.

Above is a picture of Shannon with an 18 watt 240 v blacklight that we used for decades, thank God for the recent advent of powerful UV torches that weigh only grams and shine much, much farther than these shoulder destroying, time consuming behemoths.

Above is a long exposure showing Jupiter setting in the west and some of the old, extremely rich (in their day) opal workings on the Old 10 Mile and Larkins Folly (foreground) opal fields of Coober Pedy Australia. 

Black lighting on the surface around old diggings in Coober Pedy has been a game of diminishing returns over the last 30 odd years, and in the last dozen or so has usually been downright depressing. Rarely anything but a lot of hard work, very dangerous due to the ever present death traps that are mining shafts literally everywhere, not to mention the gaze of a thousand noodlers (fossickers) having stripped the dumps of all but tiny traces. 

Hope, however, springs eternal, and one particular night on the fields a few years back, we had that rare burst of energy and enthusiasm to brave the opal fields at night to blacklight, particularly as we wanted to try out the new high powered UV torches that had revolutionised so much of our mining and opal exploration.

Another long exposure looking south, note the southern cross and pointers, always taking the stage in the southern sky over Coober Pedy's crystal nights. 

 The above video was taken moments after uncovering a fully opalised belemnite in its host rock. the excitement is palpable as I inspect the ancient opal fossil to see the extent of its filling.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I found this belemnite pipe (carefully removed from its host rock, (natural breaks).

 

Mind blowing, super gem extremely stable high quality light crystal opal in large cuttable pieces, this will make some truly world class opal jewelry.. 

 

 The full extent of the opalised ancient squid (belemnite) pieces.

A stunning set made with the opal we sent to the UK via Fedex.

This piece didnt get to the website, Mum snapped it up at first glance! 

Another shot of those lovely earrings. 

Below is a video of the 'kingstone'. This is extremely rare and superb quality opal, cant wait to find a truck full! :-)

Several years ago we were in Coober Pedy and a bit hard up for places to find opal.

I went for a fly over on Google maps and found this open cut i knew had been started over 20 years ago but had now been completed to the opal level. We went to check and sure enough it had been abandoned so we had a scratch around for a few days, and here are some of the results in a quick video! Shows opening up, digging in the opal level, some of the stunning precious opal kingstones, and of course, the finished one of a kind pieces of beautiful Australian opal jewelry that resulted. 

 

 

 

Quite a few years later my younger brother Shannon and I were champing at the bit each morning to get to the field. After a sauce with pasty and a farmers union iced coffee, we were totally pumped. Off down the dusty track in the crusty ute to our claim in the desert. In those days we had what is known as a 'self tipper' or automatic hoist. Dead Horse Gully was a favourite field we dubbed "red sauce gully" because of the stunning unusually blood red colour in the opal. On one spot we drove 200 odd feet by hand which is blasting and removing the dirt with 2 x 20 litre buckets on a barrow. We wheeled the buckets to the base of the 45 ft shaft and transferred them into the 50 litre bucket on the automatic hoist, and away she went, up and over and back again. Ironically, when we arrived and were installing the winch, we found 3 $2 coins at the top of the shaft and said, maybe its a sign we will find 6 million! Turned out to be 6 thousand, barely wages at the end of it, but an experience I would probably do over for free.
At one point in that claim we were trying to open up a 9 inch air shaft that was blocked with gibbers about 30 ft down. We devised a simple plan to drop a sausage of anfo (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil) or 'nitro' locally. With the safety fuse alight, Shannon dropped the plastic bag down the hole attached to a skinny frayed rope with the idea that a small jolt at the bottom would release the sausage and we would crack the blockage. I still clearly remember the look on Shannon’s face when he brought the rope up and the bomb was still attached! There was still a smidge of time on the fuse so I grabbed the rope and hastily dropped it in the hole. Right then we realized the ute was only about ten feet from the hole and could suffer some damage from the blast. I quickly grabbed a short handled shovel and covered the hole thinking it may stop some rocks from flying out. Cerrracckk!! Off went the shot as we woo hooed and leaped with excitement at the adrenaline rush, being not too far from the hole. As the dust cleared, we noticed the shovel had disappeared, then looking upwards saw the shovel spinning at rpm about 150 ft in the air on it's way back down. Thankfully everything missed the ute and we survived. We literally had a blast, got the shaft cleared and the air flowing but all for very little opal in the end. One of the partners was always totally beside himself and yapped his face off every time a bomb exploded, our trusty red heeler cross mining dog Goof, Goofaloofa or Loofy as we liked to call him most. He loved the back of the ute better than anywhere else on earth, like any other bush dog. If we approached speed on the Stuart highway the wind would catch Loof's eyelids and lips, turning him into a freak. Brilliant for a laugh after a hard day mining, being full of endorphins and pretty 'surfed out'.

 Watch to see the process we followed mining this claim, and some of the spoils at the end...

An old World Class Opal article from back in the day detailing an adventure to Mintabie, note the blasting, subsequent seam and resultant fine jewelry set ready for sale. 

We have been at this a while! 

Drilling and blasting underneath the opal level and subsequent jackpicking down of the opal level. Circa 1999.

The 'kingstone' I cut this stone into a nice larger oval and two smaller ones, then had them set into solid 18k gold as a pendant and earring set. 

The photos are pretty bad as I only had an analogue SLR camera but was happy to have documented the process!

Sadly both Australian federal and state Liberal governments have shut the township of Mintabie meaning this opal field, and the opportunities it afforded to adventurous, entrepreneurial pioneers and indeed the local indigenous people, is now virtually abandoned. 

For about 25 years I searched the underground labyrinths of the Coober Pedy opal fields for any hint of precious opal. It is a fascinating pursuit with visceral rewards. If I say so myself, I became quite adept at sniffing out colour traces, coupled with some level of tenacity this often produced beautiful, cuttable opal stones, and quite often, in particular, opalised shells. The opal fossils of the Stuart Range bulldog shale occur throughout a cretaceous sedimentary shale that is up to a mile or more deep in places, with opal fossils occurring in the top one hundred or so feet of intensely weathered shale. These creatures are thought to have lived about 120 million years ago and have been replaced through the still relatively mysterious process by which calcareous fossil deposits are sometimes filled with precious opal. Earlier this year (2021) While Shannon was shifting dirt with the Kanga loader in our mine on Donna's Rush, I couldnt sit idle for the machine to dig the specified hole. Many years ago a miner showed me some beautiful opal from Donna's Rush and I knew the spot he worked but never had the chance to have a look at it.

 

I drove our trusty mining winch over to the spot, and picked a 3 foot diameter shaft to set up the winch nearest to the 6 foot (tunelling machine) shaft where they let the machine down, this way i know its most likely open and has access to the mine.

Once down the bottom, at about 50 feet to the floor, I was confronted by a myriad of strong sticky redback spider webs all thoughout the mine, most accompanied by big momma fat redbacks, each with enough dangerous venom that one decent bite could mean I wasnt leaving the mine that day.. 

Once upon a time I would leave the red backs in peace, that is until one time i let a big nest stop me from checking a mine, Several other miners soon found well over 150 thousand in beautiful opal there. Now i do what i have to do to be able to check the mine....

In this video, I show the pocket of beautiful white based vertical opal i managed to locate in front of the opal bearing fault \ slide at about 45 feet depth and the shell that was further out from the fault, hiding a few inches behind a speck of untouched shell trace left in the wall at about 50 feet. 

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This opal can be purchased at opalauctions.com/stores/graceopal

 

Cheers for now, Lochy.

 

In this flashback to February this year (2021) We show grabs of finding and digging out rough opal and some of the finished pieces and jewellery we eventually made out of it.
Almost always fun, full of hope, and tenacity. With every new morning opal is everywhere! Never give up…