What Does A Fire Opal Look Like

The real opal and the non opal layer attached to it.

What does a fire opal look like.

Fire opals like other opals are relatively hard rating a 5 5 to 6 5 on the hardness scale. Fire opal is a term used for colorful transparent to translucent opal that has a bright fire like background color of yellow orange or red. Although it does not usually show any play of color occasionally a stone will exhibit bright green flashes. Fire opal is a transparent to translucent opal with warm body colors of yellow to orange to red.

Look at the back of the opal does it look or feel like a kind of hard black or grey plastic. Like the traditional opal fire opals can occasionally display signs of iridescence in very bright light. It may or may not exhibit play of color the color of fire opal can be as vivid as seen in the three stones shown here. Our opal earrings look like the surface might be a chip of brilliant colours in the sun that at a point looks like a diamond however the opal is not straight through.

The fire opal is a term not commonly used within australia but most famous source of fire opals is the state of querétaro in mexico. Fire opals have a very low density lower than that of glass with which it is sometimes confused. Fire opal typically exhibits a hazy or cloudy appearance which is a result of slight opalescence adularescence. Doublets are a little more difficult to identify as they often use a natural potch black colourless opal or ironstone the brown boulder opal host rock backing.

Fire opal does not exhibit much play of color like other varieties of opal. Opalescence is often used to refer to play of color but the term should only be used to describe the milky iridescence of common opals which do not. Any information would be appreciated. These opals are commonly called mexican fire opals.

The orange stone is about 7 x 9 millimeters in size and was mined in oregon. I was wondering what kind it is perhaps it is too expensive to be an opal solid on the other hand maybe it is. Its water content may range from 3 to 21 by weight but is usually between 6 and 10. Doublets have only two layers.

These three stones show the color range of fire opal a name given to specimens of opal with a fiery background color. Triplets are often glued on to a black plastic glass or vitrolite backing. Because of its amorphous character it is classed as a mineraloid unlike crystalline forms of silica which are classed as minerals it is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock being. You should be able to see a thin regular line where the two layers are joined together.

From a side view a real opal should look solid. Transparent specimens have a good luster. The orange and yellow stones have a sleepy translucence while the red stone is semitranslucent almost opaque.