The opal miner is a strange breed of individual. He chooses to lead a spartan life in a particularly barren and dry corner of the world while he searches for his rainbows. To escape the extreme temperatures, he must burrow a home underground. Opals are usually found in sandstone or claystone. Deposits are spread over a wide area, and there is little clue to their location.
Mining is done on a small scale with hand-operated machinery and small tools.
A pocket knife might be the final instrument to loosen an opal from its host rock. Over the past century scientists have become highly skilled at creating laboratory facsimiles of fine gemstones. Far from being mere look-alikes, these synthetic gems are made of exactly the same material that nature uses and mimic the natural structure perfectly. Synthetic opal first came on the market in 1974 and has been improving ever since. A skilled gemologist like a member of the American Gem Society can distinguish it from natural opal by viewing it under magnification, but to the untrained eye it looks natural.