Description

Pink Opal tumbled stones are an amorphous quartz composed of silica anhydride and water. Being a colloidal substance, it has no actual crystalline structure and is lacking a regular shape. It forms from a sedimentary process and is a secondary process from the alteration of high silica igneous extrusive rocks. (Alteration is a process that modifies pre-existing rocks or sediments).

Basically, it is a type of common opal that is opaque and does not have the “fire” like that of precious opals. It’s coloring ranges from a bright pink to a pink-white, cream, and even a very pale lavender. Currently Peru has the brightest and most impressive Pink Opal specimens, but it can also be found in other South American countries, USA, and even Africa and Australia. Most of what is available in he market today has come from Peru.

In the way that most opals form, pink opal occurs when water evaporates from silica, leaving a gel behind that eventually solidifies into the opal. The pink coloring occurs depending on the locale. Mexican and Peruvian pink opals get their color from small amounts of quinones, organic compounds often found in plants, that enter the stone during formation. American and Australian pink opals get their color from the presence of manganese.