Chasing Colour - the quest for Australia's Opal

Australia's opal fields are unlike any other mining landscape on Earth. Far from the corporate empires of diamonds, gold, and precious metals, the opal industry remains defiantly small-scale, fiercely independent, and deeply human. There are no cartels here, no global conglomerates, no billion-dollar machinery fleets. Instead, the opal fields are shaped by individuals — men and women working claims the size of a backyard, guided by instinct, stubbornness, and the hope that the next scrape of the pick might reveal a flash of impossible colour. Chasing Colour is the definitive exploration of this world: a sweeping, atmospheric journey through the geology, history, culture, and craft of Australian opal mining. From the ancient inland seas that formed the stones to the frontier towns of Lightning Ridge and Coober Pedy, from the quiet rituals of prospecting to the delicate art of cutting, this book reveals the opal industry as a rare survivor — a mining culture untouched by corporate homogeny. Where the diamond trade is dominated by global marketing machines and tightly controlled supply chains, opal remains gloriously unpredictable. Every stone is unique. Every miner works to their own rhythm. Every claim is a gamble. And every opal carries a story that begins in the desert and may end in the hands of a jeweller in Paris, Tokyo, or New York. Along the way, the book introduces the characters who define the fields: the old-timers who still read the ground by feel, the newcomers chasing freedom rather than fortune, the cutters who coax fire from fragile stone, and the communities that thrive in some of the harshest landscapes on the continent.