Fire Opal
Pictures of Fire Opal

"Fire Opal" is a term used for opal material that does not display a "play of colors". Instead, it has a bright color throughout the stone. Fire opal is often transparent to translucent. These stones can be cut en cabochon or faceted. The transparent stones are most often faceted and the translucent stones most often cut into cabs. Fire opal is a delicate stone, best suited for earrings, pendants and other jewelry that is unlikely to suffer impact or abrasion. It is not well suited as a ring stone. The specimen at right is a faceted fire opal cut from material mined in Oregon. It is 9 millimeters by 7 millimeters and weighs 1.2 carats. The specimen below is a yellow fire opal mine in Nevada. It is ten millimeters round and weighs 3.2 carats.