[Jewelry making - Article 01293] - [Orchid] Red Chatoyance in Crystal Opal

[dlevin]

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    I have this piece of unimpressive semi-crystal, semi-white opal that
    I cut thin, about 2.5mm thick.  It has a yellow tinge to it as much
    Australian opal has. 

    It is an oval about 25 x 15 mm.  It has a little green and blue fire
    in it.  But what I haven't seen before quite like this is a line or
    a point of bright red light that runs across the stone as it shows
    in the light source. 

    It turns up in incandescent, and halogen as well as in sunlight. 
    The odd thing too is that it stays opposite the reflection of the
    light source. So that with the sun shining on the top of the cab
    there is a white reflection of the sun on the surface of the oval on
    one side of the cab and then there is the bright red pinpoint on the
    opposite side of the top. It depends on the flatness or roundness of
    the surface whether it is pinpoint or line of red. 

    Another color peculiarity of this stone is if I let the sun shine
    through it, the color of the light on the other side is a bright
    golden yellow.  In fact I can see through it and it turns the light
    orangish yellow.  AS I've looked at it, more one additional thing
    that is odd.  When the sunlight shines through the stone onto white
    paper, if forms a long feather ended light shape, I guess it's
    refraction, that is yellow/orange.  The oddity is that the length of
    the light shape is opposite the length of the cab.  The long side of
    the cab forms the short refraction light shape. 

    Sorry about how complicated this description is.  I'll try to
    photograph this all if anyone wants to see it. 

    So has anyone seen this sort of thing before?  Would you know what
    is causing the red? 

Derek Levin


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