A little while ago “Mac ” contacted me with his theory on opal formation. I have my theory on this topic but it is good to keep an open mind as none of us were around when opal was formed.
Mac has given me permission to present his thoughts on the subject and he is currently working on a more detailed presentation which he hopes to publish later in the year. The following is Mac’s story.
How are Sedimentary opals formed
We have two types of Opals, Volcanic and Sedimentary. The Volcanic is relative easy to understand. The Heat, Pressure and Material is supplied by an active Volcano, but in Sedimentary Opals the only thing that is present is the Material. There is no heat source and there is no depth to supply the pressure needed to create the fusion of materials needed for Opal to form, much less enough to get the Crystalline lattice formation to occur. Maybe I should have said there are two ways Opal is formed, one that is easy to understand, the other, no-one can explain.
Now let’s take Opal Fossils. If heat and pressure were applied at depth then the heat and pressure required would distort the shape and formation of the fossil basically turning it from sedimentary to metamorphic or igneous deposits. That has not occurred. There has been some sort of thermal event in the Silica that has caused it to Flow, Seep and Inject itself into the insitu rock or displace other material that has taken the place of bone or living organisms and heat adequate enough to allow crystalline structure’s to form and cooled off quick enough to keep the nanosphere’s in place.
None of this
explains the Background Radiation which occurs in Opal Formations.
What we have
is multiple questions on the formation of Sedimentary Opals AND the answer must
account for ALL Opal formations and the presence of Opal Fossils, the only
CRYSTAL Fossils in the World. I am going
to get sidetracked here and may repeat myself but bear with me.
HOW
IMPORTANT ARE OPAL FOSSIL’S
Are they Unique, Rare or just plain Common?
Instead of
being put on the Defensive and attempting to answer questions, how about we
start at the END and work our way FORWARD!
How many
Diamond fossils have you seen?
How many
Sapphire fossils have you seen?
How many
Emerald fossils have you seen?
How many
Ruby fossils have you seen?
How many
Amethyst, Citrine, Quartz or ANY CRYSTAL FOSSILS have you seen?
OH, SO
THEY ARE RARE!!!
How
rare? Well like the old saying goes,
Show Me Another One!
Silica melts
at just under 3000 Degrees and boils at 4046 Degrees
Why is this
important, because at that temperature most fossil material/structure should
have been destroyed!
Ruby’s melt
at 2049 degrees, Emeralds melt at 2570 degrees, Diamonds, depending on who you ask melt somewhere between 2700 degrees
and 6000+ degrees if you ask the Diamond Association, in fact they say they
don’t melt but burn if oxygen is present, so it is evident that they take
extreme pressure to form.
What
conditions were different between Quartz/Corundum/Carbon/Feldspar gemstones vs.
Sedimentary Opals? The Existence of
Pressure and Heat! In Sedimentary
Deposits heat under normal circumstances is not possible, otherwise the
Sedimentary formations would have been turned to Metamorphic or Igneous Rock
formations and destroyed any fossils.
Let’s move
to Volcanic deposits of Opals, those are absolutely understood, heat and
pressure and presto you have opals, ruby’s, emerald’s, diamond’s, sapphire’s
and the feldspar group but Sedimentary Opals are truly a conundrum and
Geologist know it, to broach the subject exposes ignorance so they pretty much
stay away.
All of this is relevant to the formation of Opals and Opal Fossils.Their melting points are actually very close to each other, so why are there no Other Gemstone Fossils?
What can we say about these jewels
Ignorance,
Superstition and Market
Manipulation has
priced the Opal Market for far too long, let’s all get Real! Crystal Fossils outside the Opal world are nonexistent
and opals/opal fossils do not reflect the prices that should exist. Maybe if people Understood their rarity and
creation they would be more readily accepted.
I will now
get back on track. What I am writing
here is a very Short explanation and I have available on request a detailed
analysis and in depth explanations and examples that covers, CME, Micro Nova’s,
Moon Missions, Mars Missions, past CME’s, historical evidence, petroglyphs, geological,
astrological, atmospheric, biblical, CIA (of course) … you get the idea.
So off we go
on a, hopefully, education idea.
Let’s start
with the Culprit and work our way out. It is being discussed in multiple papers that our Sun is not as quiet as
the people populating this planet think, the Carrington Event of 1859 is a
classic example but let’s say we had a Carrington Event on steroids about 110
million years ago, maybe our Sun is one of the multiple stars that “Micro Nova
or Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)”
periodically, as odd and destructive as that sounds it is my opinion that
either/or is the likely culprit for the Sedimentary Opal Deposits. (Look to Mars
opal deposits)
Either event
would compress our atmosphere, especially at the pole areas; if this
compression were enough it would produce Massive Energy Exchanges between the CME’s or Micro Nova’s and the surface of the
earth, there are multiple examples of exactly this happening, unexplained of course. This process is called “Vitrification”
and sometimes occurs with Lightning Strikes but these strikes would be much more
intense. The in situ rock would not come
under extreme pressure or heat, the Silica, mostly already in place, would be supplied
by the exiting Inland Sea, the silica would melt, fuse with sun supplied nitrogen, local water
and with the pressure and heat from the massive electrical storm, inject and
force the Liquid Silica into the cracks, pores, voids and replace the existing
material for most fossils, without destroying them. It would also supply the background radiation
found in Sedimentary Opal Deposits, courtesy of the sun.
The full
paper is about 60 pages long but this boils it down almost to an insulting simple
point but it does have a point.
Mac
So ends Mac’s treatise.
I hope this triggers some comments
Johno
