Why www.ParchedEarthOpals.com?

The red sandy dirt of Australia suffers from both flood and drought. The drying of the mud leaves the earth looking parched with a distinctive pattern of cracking or crackling of the mud. Well some of the ironstone matrix opal mimics this pattern. The theory being that as the iron rich muddy silt of the inland sea bed began to dry it left these distinctive cracks and millions of years later the cracks infilled with silica gel that became opal OR the cracks filled with a kaolinlike clay that when exposed to the seepage of rising magmatic waters, the electrolytes changed the clay into opal. Whatever theories you subscribe to and there are a few, I am just pointing out that one can find ironstone matrix that has lovely lines of opal fire running throughout in that parched earth pattern. So that and my unquenchable thirst for water while mining in the hot desert sun, inspired me to call the website www.ParchedEarthOpals.com