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

Item Description

This is a beautiful example of what used to be called "Hyalite Opal" from a discovery in January 2019. The Étienne Mine is a small and fairly new locality in San Luis Potosi, which 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 distintive 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 central portion of the piece hostshe rarely seen "Blood Vessel Opal", which hosts small inclusions of iron oxide, creating deep orange and red hues, that resemble capillaries. Opal-AN is known for being brilliantly fluorescent, and this piece shows a fantastic green hue when exposed to SW UV light. 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.