Arizona Blue opal, aka., Southern Skies Opal is like nothing you've ever seen before!! The incredible blue color ranges from a robin's egg blue to black, and has a hardness factor of 6-1/2 to 7, which makes it wonderful for cutting!! Southern Skies premium opal will have red, blue, yellow, green and violet play of color in the stone. Our picture opal is totally unique to the gem world!! Never before seen swirls of different colors and patterns, resulting in pictures that mesmerize and hypnotize!! Take a look through our gallery and get ready to be Intrigued and Amazed!!
http://www.southernskiesopal.com/
The sales page: http://www.southernskiesopal.com/finished-jewelry/
The rest of the story from EXPOExpress: "Arizona's Eccentric Gemmy Treasures"
Arizona is a state rich in gemstone deposits of turquoise, gem chrysocolla in quartz (gem silica), garnets, peridot, azurite, malachite, amethyst, fire agate and gold. There are, though, some lesser known, unusual gemmy materials that have caught my attention in recent years. Blue opal, “pink desert silica,” cuprite with malachite and copper, alabaster onyx, and banded fluorite are some of these eccentric gem treasures. When cut, they possess the necessary requirements to be called a gem: rarity, beauty and durability. Their market availability is limited, the color combinations are beautiful, they are rather easy to cut and polish, and they have a good wearability when they become part of jewelry. Personally, I love using gem materials that are rare and uncommon, that have a mining story behind them, that are attractive with cool patterns and design elements, and may be incorporated into one-of-a-kind art jewelry.
Arizona Blue Opal:
Blue opal from Arizona has been mined for nearly half a century. Most of this material does not have play-of-color, but it displays a beautiful deep blue body color, often occurring in veins that penetrate the rhyolite host rock, which shows red and tan scenic bands. Rare, high-grade Arizona blue opal does display play-of-color, with reds, pinks and greens being the most prominent colors. A GIA report from back in the early mining days confirmed that the material is opal.
There is a wide range of materials classified as opals that may or may not show any spectral color flashes, the optical phenomenon of play-of-color. These opals are usually referred to as “common opals” in contrast to their “precious” cousins, the black or white opals, boulder and matrix opals, and fire opals. But, what these opals have is a striking body color — blue, pink, yellow, green, or stark white — and may also show bands, stripes or scenic patterns. I, along with several other people in the trade, think that their appealing beauty should take them out of the “common” class and place them straight into the “exotic, stunning, rare and unusual” stratosphere!
The blue color of the Arizona blue opal is similar to “aero blue” or “baby blue eyes blue,” rather than electric blue, and matches closely the 2016 Pantone’s Color-of-the-Year, the “Serenity” blue. The hardness of blue opal depends on the purity of the inclusions. It ranges from 5.5 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale, high enough to allow for superior polish without being too time-consuming to cut. Material is mostly opaque.
Blue Opal has been known in Arizona since 1969, when prospectors Cheri Saunders and her husband, Jim, discovered it at the Jay-R Mine in the Atascosa Mountains of Santa Cruz County, which are as far as the crow flies from my studio. The blue opal was originally mined on six claims, which were part of the Coronado National Forest, at nearly 4,000 feet elevation. After her husband died in 1973, Saunders worked the mine and created jewelry from the material she recovered (“A Rocks to Riches Saga,” Sam Negri, Arizona Highways, September 1996). Following Saunders’ recent failing health, a sell-out of all her Arizona blue opal took place at the Blue Opal Art Gallery in Whetstone, near Sierra Vista, and several of us were invited to go. Beautiful scenic specimens and some cut stones found new homes.
Arizona blue opal is also reported in Allan W. Eckert’s book, The World of Opals. Eckert also lists the Arizona Blue Fire Opal Mine, located adjacent to the Jay-R, as a source of the material. According to www.mindat.org website, the Arizona Blue Fire Opal claim (Scorpio claims) is in the Oro Blanco District (Ruby District) in the Oro Blanco Mountains in Santa Cruz County. (https://www.mindat.org/loc-43389.html). A recent claim in Santa Cruz County is currently being mined by the Southern Skies Opal Company, producing blue opal. Some of the material displays play-of-color, and some features attractive pink bands.
The Arizona blue opal material is similar to blue opal from Oregon. The blue opal there comes from the Owyhee Mountains in the eastern part of the state, near the Idaho border. It shows no play-of-color, and its color is a bright robin-egg blue. This opal is usually semi-translucent to opaque. On rare occasions, it may show play-of-color, with red and green pin fire. Its hardness is 5.5-6.5. Blue opal from Arizona has a very different look from its more famed cousin, the Peruvian blue opal, whose color ranges from a bright neon-blue variety to sky blue, turquoise blue and greenish-blue, often along with white or cream bands. Sometimes there are also beautiful delicate dendritic patterns created by fern-like black inclusions, and it is usually translucent to opaque.
(And yes it is considered a crazy opal in solids despite the occurrence of fine gems.)