Pink Opal

SiO2 · Mohs 5.5 · Amorphous · Heart Chakra

The stone of pink opal: meaning, mineralogy, and somatic practice.

Grief & LossHeart HealingSelf-LoveEmotional Balance

This page documents traditional and cultural uses of pink opal alongside emerging research on tactile grounding objects. Crystalis does not claim that pink opal treats, cures, or prevents any medical condition. For mental health concerns, consult a qualified professional.

Crystalis Editorial · 40+ Years · Herndon, VA · 2 peer-reviewed sources

Origins: Peru, Australia, Mexico

Crystalis

Materia Medica

Pink Opal

The Cradle of Comfort

Grief & LossHeart HealingSelf-Love

Crystalis

Protocol

The Soft Return

The Soft Return Protocol

3 min

1
Heart Placement (30 seconds)Sit or lie down. Place the pink opal directly on the center of your chest -- over the sternum, over the heart. Both hands rest palm-down on your thighs. Do not hold the stone in place. Let gravity do it. Let the stone rest on you the way a sleeping child rests on a parent's chest -- weight without demand, presence without agenda. Close your eyes. Feel the stone's temperature. Pink opal is room temperature at first, then slowly warms. Track that warming. It is the stone learning your body's heat signature. It is also your heart noticing that something is resting on it without trying to take anything. Thirty seconds of receiving without doing.
2
The Receiving Breath (60 seconds)Inhale slowly through the nose for 5 counts. As you inhale, imagine the breath entering through the pink opal -- as if the stone were a soft pink filter that the air passes through before reaching your lungs. The breath arrives already gentle, already warm, already pink. Hold for 2 counts. Exhale through a softly open mouth for 6 counts. On the exhale, let the shoulders drop. Let the jaw unclench. Let the belly soften. Four full cycles. Each inhale is a practice in receiving. Each exhale is a practice in releasing the tension that makes receiving feel dangerous.
3
The Softening Scan (40 seconds)With the stone still on your chest, do a slow body scan from the crown of your head downward. At each point, ask silently: where am I bracing? The forehead. The jaw. The throat. The shoulders. The chest wall around the stone. The belly. The hips. The hands. As you find each bracing point, do not force it to release. Simply notice it and say silently: "Noted. Not needed right now." The bracing will either soften or it will not. Both are fine. The practice is in the noticing, not the fixing. Pink opal does not force softening. It creates the conditions where softening becomes possible.
4
The Held Breath (20 seconds)Take one deep breath and hold it for 5 counts with the stone on your heart. During the hold, place both palms gently over the pink opal -- cupping the stone and your own chest simultaneously. You are now holding the stone that is holding you. This is the receiving loop: the earth made the opal, you are holding the opal, the opal is resting on your heart. Three points of contact. Three directions of tenderness. Hold for 5 counts, then exhale completely and let your hands return to your sides.

Continue in the full protocol below.

tap to flip for protocol

Grief needs a softer body.

Pink opal is common opal in a blush register, opaque to translucent and more atmospheric than flashy. The stone diffuses rather than declares. Sorrow can breathe easier around that texture.

What Your Body Knows

Nervous system states

Pink opal is a Heart Chakra gem -- specifically tuned to the aspects of the heart that have to do with receiving rather than giving. Many heart stones activate the outgoing functions of the heart: compassion, generosity, love for others. Pink opal activates the incoming channel: the ability to receive tenderness, accept comfort, and allow yourself to be held.

In somatic practice, pink opal addresses the pattern where the heart is functional but defended -- where giving love is easy but receiving it triggers the nervous system into protection.

sympathetic

The Soft Fortress

Someone hurt you and you decided, consciously or not, that the solution was to make the heart impenetrable. You can still love; you can give endlessly, generously, fiercely. But receiving love activates the alarm system. A compliment makes you flinch. An offer of help feels like a trap. Intimacy is possible but only if you control it, only if you are the one extending and never the one exposed. Your sympathetic system has coded receptivity as danger. Pink opal is the gentlest possible intervention for this state. It does not pry the armor off. It does not demand vulnerability. It sits against the chest like a warm palm and says: the armor did its job. You survived. But the threat is over. And what is behind the armor is not wounded anymore. It is manganese-pink and quietly luminous and ready to be touched without flinching.

dorsal vagal

The Opal Drought

You have given everything. To children, to partners, to work, to the world. And now the well is dry. Not angry-dry. Not bitter-dry. Just; empty. The place where tenderness lived has been emptied by years of outflow without inflow. The dorsal vagal system has dimmed the emotional circuits to conserve what remains, producing a flat, muted quality where deep feeling used to be. You can still function. You can still care. But the caring comes from discipline now, not from overflow. Pink opal is hydrated silica; a mineral that literally contains water within its structure. The water is not added later. It is part of the stone's identity from formation. This teaches the nervous system that replenishment is not optional. The water is constitutional. Without it, the opal ceases to be opal. Your tenderness is not a luxury you provide after everything else is handled. It is structural. Without it, you cease to be yourself.

ventral vagal

The Grief Softening

You are grieving something; a person, a relationship, a version of your life that ended; and the grief oscillates. Some hours it is numb, distant, almost manageable (dorsal). Then without warning, a song, a scent, a memory tears through the numbness like a knife, and the pain is so sharp it activates the whole sympathetic system: heart racing, breath catching, eyes stinging. Then numbness again. The cycle is exhausting. Pink opal does not stop grief. It does not numb it further or make the sharp moments sharper. It does something more precise: it creates a medium; a soft, warm, hydrated space; where the oscillation can slow. The peaks get lower. The valleys get shallower. The grief begins to flow instead of spike. Pink opal is the mineralogical equivalent of a hand on your back during a cry; it does not stop the tears, but it changes the temperature of the room in which they fall.

ventral vagal

The Open Receive

You can receive a compliment without deflecting it. You can accept help without calculating the debt. You can sit in someone's love without scanning for the exit. Your heart is open in both directions; outflow and inflow balanced, giving and receiving in a rhythm that does not deplete either channel. Your nervous system is in ventral vagal regulation: the heart is not defended because it does not need to be. You have learned that vulnerability is not the same as danger, and that receiving is not the same as owing. Pink opal in this state is not medicine. It is a mirror of what your heart already knows: that the softest thing in the room is sometimes the strongest, and that the manganese-pink of genuine tenderness cannot be manufactured. It has to form slowly, in the quiet dark, with water and time and the right chemistry.

Nervous system mapping based on polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011).

The Earth Made This

Formation: How Pink Opal Becomes Pink Opal

Opal without the fireworks, carrying a different kind of weight. Pink opal is common opal, amorphous hydrated silica, colored by inclusions of the mineral palygorskite (a magnesium-aluminum phyllosilicate) or by organic compounds, depending on the deposit. Peruvian pink opal, the most recognized variety, forms in Andean volcanic host rocks where silica-rich solutions deposited in cavities.

It shows no play of color because its silica spheres lack the ordered arrangement required for diffraction. The pink ranges from pastel to bubblegum. It is softer than chalcedony, Mohs 5.

5 to 6, and porous enough to absorb oils and dyes, which means treated material is common in the market. Australian pink opal exists but is rarer. The Peruvian material is the commercial standard and has been carved there for centuries.

Material facts

What the stone is made of

Mineralogy: Common opal, amorphous silica hydrate. Chemical formula: SiO₂·nH₂O. No crystal structure. Mohs hardness: 5-6. Specific gravity: 2.00-2.20. Color: soft pink to rose, opaque. Color attributed to organic compounds (quinones) and/or trace manganese, depending on locality. Luster: waxy to vitreous. Habit: massive, botryoidal, or nodular. No play of color (common opal, not precious opal). Water content typically 3-10% by weight. The silica structure consists of randomly arranged silica spheres rather than the ordered stacking that produces opal's play of color. Primary sources: Peru (Andean pink opal) and Australia.

Deeper geology

The formation process begins in volcanic environments where silica-rich fluids, derived from the weathering and breakdown of volcanic rocks (particularly rhyolites and ignimbrites), percolate through porous host rock and accumulate in cavities, fractures, and void spaces. As the fluids cool and evaporate, silica precipitates as amorphous opal -- layer upon layer of hydrated silica building up over thousands to millions of years. In the Andean volcanic provinces of Peru, the combination of manganese-bearing volcanic source rocks and specific pH and temperature conditions in the hydrothermal system produces the distinctive pink coloration. The concentration of manganese determines the intensity: trace amounts produce a pale blush, higher concentrations produce vivid bubblegum pink, and iron contamination shifts the color toward salmon or peach.

Unlike precious opal, which requires ordered arrays of uniformly sized silica spheres to produce play of color, pink opal's silica spheres are random in size and arrangement. This randomness is what makes it opaque rather than iridescent -- and what gives it the soft, milky, almost edible quality that distinguishes it visually from any other pink stone. The water content in pink opal typically ranges from 4-10% by weight. This structural water is critical to the stone's stability -- if lost through heat, dry air, or chemical exposure, the opal can craze (develop fine surface cracks) or dehydrate permanently.

Peruvian pink opal, the most commercially significant variety, forms in Cenozoic volcanic formations in the Andes Mountains. The deposits occur primarily in the Ica, Arequipa, and Ayacucho regions, where hydrothermal activity associated with Andean volcanism created the silica-bearing fluids. Peru declared pink opal its national stone in recognition of the gem's economic and cultural importance. Australian pink opal forms through similar processes in different volcanic terrains, sometimes displaying slightly different pink tones due to variations in coloring agents and water content.

Mineralogy

Mineral specs

Chemical Formula

SiO2

Crystal System

Amorphous

Mohs Hardness

5.5

Specific Gravity

2.00-2.20

Luster

Vitreous to waxy

Color

Soft pink to rose, opaque

Traditional Knowledge

Traditions across cultures

Peruvian Andes Mining

Pre-Columbian-present

The Andean Pink Opal Deposits

Pink opal from the Andes mountains of Peru, particularly from deposits near Acari in the Arequipa region, has been carved and valued since pre-Columbian times. The Inca and preceding Andean cultures worked the soft opal into small figures, beads, and ceremonial objects. The pink color derives from trace amounts of an organic quinone compound called palygorskite rather than from metallic impurities, making Peruvian pink opal chemically distinct from other colored opals. Following Spanish colonization, the material was exported to Europe where it was classified as common opal due to its lack of play-of-color. Modern Peruvian mining operations continue to produce pink opal in quantity, and the material has become an economic resource for Andean mining communities.

Australian Opal Industry

20th century

The Australian Pink Opal Classification

Australian opal fields, particularly those at Coober Pedy and Andamooka in South Australia, occasionally produce pink common opal alongside the precious fire opal for which Australia is famous. The Geological Survey of South Australia documented pink opal occurrences as a hydrated silica gel that formed in weathered volcanic and sedimentary host rocks under specific pH conditions. Australian gemological laboratories classified pink opal separately from precious opal, establishing that the pink coloration in Australian specimens results from different chemical processes than in Peruvian material, with manganese and iron trace elements contributing to color rather than organic compounds.

Mexican Opal Heritage

Colonial period-present

The Mexican Pink Fire Opal

Mexico's opal mining tradition centered in the states of Queretaro and Jalisco extends from pre-Aztec times through the colonial period to the present. While Mexico is best known for its orange and red fire opals, the Queretaro mines also produce a pastel pink variety that occasionally displays play-of-color. The Real de Catorce and Magdalena mining districts have yielded pink opal specimens documented by the Mexican Geological Service. Mexican pink opal differs from Peruvian material in its volcanic rhyolite host rock and higher water content. Mexican lapidaries have cut and polished pink opal alongside their more famous fire opal for generations, maintaining traditional mining and cutting methods.

Contemporary Crystal Practice

1990s-present

The Emotional Softening Practice

Crystal practitioners adopted Peruvian pink opal as a gentleness stone beginning in the 1990s, prescribing it specifically for emotional recovery situations where harder stones felt too confrontational. The soft pastel color, the physical softness of the material (Mohs 5.5-6), and its opacity created a sensory profile that practitioners described as cushioning rather than activating. Pink opal was distinguished from rose quartz in practitioner protocols: where rose quartz was prescribed for opening, pink opal was prescribed for resting. Practitioners working with grief, burnout, and emotional exhaustion recommended it as a first-stage stone, to be used before the person was ready for deeper work with more activating minerals.

When This Stone Finds You

Sacred Match prescribes Pink Opal when you report:

Difficulty receiving love, comfort, or compliments

Emotional depletion from giving without receiving

Grief that oscillates between numbness and sharp pain

Heart armor that was once protection but is now a cage

Needing to cry but being unable to access the tears

Self-compassion deficit after prioritizing everyone else

Wanting to love again after heartbreak

Pink opal finds you when the heart has forgotten that it has an intake valve. When you have spent so long giving -- to partners, to children, to work, to the world -- that receiving feels foreign, uncomfortable, almost threatening. This stone does not arrive to crack open your defenses. It arrives to sit quietly against the place that hurts and offer the exact temperature of comfort your nervous system will accept without flinching. Pink opal is prescribed when you need to learn that tenderness is not something you owe others. It is something the earth produces, in hydrated silica, colored by manganese, and it formed in the dark without anyone asking for it. It just became pink. And it has been waiting.

Somatic protocol

The Soft Return

The Soft Return Protocol

3 min protocol

1
Heart Placement (30 seconds)Sit or lie down. Place the pink opal directly on the center of your chest -- over the sternum, over the heart. Both hands rest palm-down on your thighs. Do not hold the stone in place. Let gravity do it. Let the stone rest on you the way a sleeping child rests on a parent's chest -- weight without demand, presence without agenda. Close your eyes. Feel the stone's temperature. Pink opal is room temperature at first, then slowly warms. Track that warming. It is the stone learning your body's heat signature. It is also your heart noticing that something is resting on it without trying to take anything. Thirty seconds of receiving without doing.
30 sec
2
The Receiving Breath (60 seconds)Inhale slowly through the nose for 5 counts. As you inhale, imagine the breath entering through the pink opal -- as if the stone were a soft pink filter that the air passes through before reaching your lungs. The breath arrives already gentle, already warm, already pink. Hold for 2 counts. Exhale through a softly open mouth for 6 counts. On the exhale, let the shoulders drop. Let the jaw unclench. Let the belly soften. Four full cycles. Each inhale is a practice in receiving. Each exhale is a practice in releasing the tension that makes receiving feel dangerous.
1 min
3
The Softening Scan (40 seconds)With the stone still on your chest, do a slow body scan from the crown of your head downward. At each point, ask silently: where am I bracing? The forehead. The jaw. The throat. The shoulders. The chest wall around the stone. The belly. The hips. The hands. As you find each bracing point, do not force it to release. Simply notice it and say silently: "Noted. Not needed right now." The bracing will either soften or it will not. Both are fine. The practice is in the noticing, not the fixing. Pink opal does not force softening. It creates the conditions where softening becomes possible.
40 sec
4
The Held Breath (20 seconds)Take one deep breath and hold it for 5 counts with the stone on your heart. During the hold, place both palms gently over the pink opal -- cupping the stone and your own chest simultaneously. You are now holding the stone that is holding you. This is the receiving loop: the earth made the opal, you are holding the opal, the opal is resting on your heart. Three points of contact. Three directions of tenderness. Hold for 5 counts, then exhale completely and let your hands return to your sides.
20 sec
5
Pocket or Bra Carry (10 seconds)Place the pink opal in a left breast pocket, inside a bra against the chest, or in a small pouch worn as a pendant. The stone should rest near the heart for the remainder of the day. Each time you notice its presence -- a slight weight, a smooth surface against skin -- let it be a one-second reminder: receiving is not a debt. Tenderness is not a transaction. The manganese in the silica did not earn its pink. It simply was present in the right concentration, and the stone became what it was always capable of becoming. So did your heart.
10 sec

The #1 Question

Can pink opal go in water?

No. Pink opal should not be placed in water. As a hydrated silica (SiO2 nH2O), opal contains 3-21% structural water by weight. Environmental water exposure can disrupt the internal moisture balance, potentially causing crazing (fine surface cracks) or color changes. The manganese compounds responsible for the pink color may also be affected by water chemistry. Use dry cleansing methods only.

Care and Maintenance

How to care for Pink Opal

The #1 Question Can Pink Opal Go in Water? NO . NOT WATER SAFE Pink opal must be kept away from water.

Pink opal is a hydrated silica (SiO 2 ·nH 2 O) containing 4-10% structural water by weight. This internal water is critical to the stone's stability and appearance. Exposure to environmental water can disrupt the delicate moisture equilibrium, causing crazing (fine surface cracks), color changes, or permanent opacity shifts.

The manganese compounds responsible for the pink color may also react with water chemistry, particularly acidic or chlorinated water. Running water rinse: avoid . disrupts surface moisture balance and risks crazing Soaking: absolutely not .

water infiltration can cause internal cracking and color degradation Salt water: extremely damaging . osmotic effects can draw out structural water Hot water: especially dangerous . thermal shock can cause immediate crazing in opal Gem water preparation: never .

use only indirect methods with the stone completely separated from water Pink opal is also vulnerable to rapid environmental changes in humidity. Moving it suddenly from a humid environment to a dry one (or vice versa) can stress the stone. Store in stable conditions and avoid placing near heating vents, air conditioning units, or in direct sun for extended periods.

The stone that teaches gentleness requires gentleness in return.

Crystal companions

What pairs well with Pink Opal

Rose Quartz

The universal love stone paired with the stone of receiving love. Rose quartz creates the ambient field of love energy, and pink opal opens the heart's intake valve to receive it. This pairing is the primary prescription for people who live in loving environments but cannot absorb the love that surrounds them. Rose quartz says "love is here." Pink opal says "let it in."

Amethyst

Amethyst adds spiritual clarity and calm to pink opal's emotional gentleness. This pairing is specifically prescribed for grief work -- amethyst provides the higher perspective (this pain is not permanent, this loss has meaning in a larger pattern) while pink opal provides the tenderness (but right now it hurts, and that is allowed). Together they create a grief container that is both spacious and warm.

Smoky Quartz

Smoky quartz provides deep grounding and the ability to process and release negative emotional patterns. Paired with pink opal, it ensures that the emotional softening does not become emotional flooding. Smoky quartz holds the root while pink opal opens the heart -- a combination that allows feelings to move through the body and out rather than pooling and stagnating. Prescribed for people who are afraid that opening the heart will result in being overwhelmed.

Green Aventurine

Green aventurine brings optimism, hope, and the energy of renewal to pink opal's gentle emotional work. This pairing is for people emerging from grief or heartbreak who are beginning to consider the possibility of loving again. Aventurine says "new growth is possible." Pink opal says "and you will be gentle with yourself as it happens." Together they support the tender early stages of emotional renewal.

Peach Moonstone

Peach moonstone combines lunar receptivity with gentle sacral activation, adding a warm, slightly sensual quality to pink opal's heart opening. This pairing is prescribed for people who need to reconnect not just with emotional tenderness but with physical touch, body comfort, and the ability to feel pleasure without guilt. Peach moonstone warms the belly while pink opal softens the chest.

In Practice

How Pink Opal is used

Pink opal is a Heart Chakra gem. specifically tuned to the aspects of the heart that have to do with receiving rather than giving. Many heart stones activate the outgoing functions of the heart: compassion, generosity, love for others. Pink opal activates the incoming channel: the ability to receive tenderness, accept comfort, and allow yourself to be held. In somatic practice, pink opal addresses the pattern where the heart is functional but defended. where giving love is easy but receiving it triggers the nervous system into protection.

The Armored Heart (nervous system pattern: SYMPATHETIC. hypervigilance around vulnerability, bracing against tenderness) Someone hurt you and you decided, consciously or not, that the solution was to make the heart impenetrable. You can still love. you can give endlessly, generously, fiercely. But receiving love activates the alarm system. A compliment makes you flinch. An offer of help feels like a trap. Intimacy is possible but only if you control it, only if you are the one extending and never the one exposed. Your sympathetic system has coded receptivity as danger. Pink opal is the gentlest possible intervention for this state. It does not pry the armor off. It does not demand vulnerability. It sits against the chest like a warm palm and says: the armor did its job. You survived. But the threat is over. And what is behind the armor is not wounded anymore. It is manganese-pink and quietly luminous and ready to be touched without flinching.

The Dry Well (nervous system pattern: DORSAL VAGAL. emotional depletion, numbness where tenderness used to live) You have given everything. To children, to partners, to work, to the world. And now the well is dry. Not angry-dry. Not bitter-dry. Just. empty. The place where tenderness lived has been emptied by years of outflow without inflow. The dorsal vagal system has dimmed the emotional circuits to conserve what remains, producing a flat, muted quality where deep feeling used to be. You can still function. You can still care. But the caring comes from discipline now, not from overflow. Pink opal is hydrated silica. a mineral that literally contains water within its structure. The water is not added later. It is part of the stone's identity from formation. This teaches the nervous system that replenishment is not optional. The water is constitutional. Without it, the opal ceases to be opal. Your tenderness is not a luxury you provide after everything else is handled. It is structural.

Verification

Authenticity

Color Uniformity and Depth Genuine pink opal shows natural color variation within a specimen, slight gradients, subtle shifts from pink to white or peach, occasional zones of greater or lesser saturation. Dyed material often shows unnaturally uniform color or concentrations of dye in surface cracks and pores. Hold the stone under a bright light and examine with a 10x loupe: natural coloring permeates the entire stone, while dyed material may show color concentrated on surfaces and in fractures.

Surface Texture Natural pink opal has a smooth, waxy luster when polished, not glassy. The surface should feel slightly softer and more organic than glass or quartz. Plastic imitations feel too smooth and too warm.

Glass imitations feel too cold and too hard. Pink opal has a distinctive tactile quality, something between stone and soap, that experienced handlers recognize immediately. Translucency Test Hold the stone up to a strong light source.

Temperature

Natural Pink Opal should usually feel cooler than plastic or resin on first touch and warm more slowly in the hand.

Scratch logic

Use 5.5 on the Mohs scale as the check, not internet myths. A real specimen should behave in line with the hardness listed above.

Surface and luster

Look for a vitreous to waxy surface quality rather than a painted or plastic shine.

Weight and density

The listed specific gravity is 2.00-2.20. If a specimen feels unusually light for its size, it may deserve a second look.

Geographic Origins

Where Pink Opal forms in the world

In the Andean volcanic provinces of Peru, the combination of manganese-bearing volcanic source rocks and specific pH and temperature conditions in the hydrothermal system produces the distinctive pink coloration. The concentration of manganese determines the intensity: trace amounts produce a pale blush, higher concentrations produce vivid bubblegum pink, and iron contamination shifts the color toward salmon or peach. Peruvian pink opal, the most commercially significant variety, forms in Cenozoic volcanic formations in the Andes Mountains.

The deposits occur primarily in the Ica, Arequipa, and Ayacucho regions, where hydrothermal activity associated with Andean volcanism created the silica-bearing fluids. Peru declared pink opal its national stone in recognition of the gem's economic and cultural importance.

FAQ

Frequently asked

What is pink opal?

Pink opal is an opaque to translucent variety of common opal (SiO2 nH2O) colored by trace amounts of manganese or included organic compounds. Unlike precious opal, pink opal does not display play of color. It is valued for its soft, candy-pink to salmon hue and its association with emotional healing, gentleness, and love renewal. The primary source is Peru, where it is the national stone, with additional deposits in Australia, Mexico, and the western United States.

Can pink opal go in water?

Why is pink opal pink?

Pink opal's color comes primarily from trace amounts of manganese (Mn) within the silica structure, or from included organic compounds such as quinones (palygorskite-related pigments). The concentration and oxidation state of manganese determine whether the stone appears pale blush, vivid bubblegum pink, or deep salmon. Peruvian pink opal tends toward a more uniform, opaque pink due to manganese, while Australian varieties may show slightly different pink tones due to different coloring mechanisms.

Where does pink opal come from?

The primary source of pink opal is Peru, specifically the Andes Mountains region near Acari and Nazca. Peruvian pink opal (also called Andean opal) gets its color from organic compounds (palygorskite) and trace amounts of manganese or iron within the silica structure. Additional deposits exist in Australia, Mexico, and the western United States. Peruvian material is considered the benchmark for color saturation and is the most commercially significant source. The stone has been used in Peruvian craft traditions for centuries.

How should I care for pink opal?

Pink opal requires gentle care. Store it away from harder stones that could scratch it (Mohs 5.5-6). Keep it out of direct sunlight for extended periods, as UV exposure can fade the delicate pink color over time. Avoid sudden temperature changes, which can cause internal stress fractures in the relatively porous silica structure. Clean with a soft, damp cloth rather than immersion. Never use ultrasonic cleaners or steam, which can damage the stone. For energetic cleansing, use moonlight, sound, or selenite rather than water.

References

Sources and citations

Spencer, L.J. (1936). What is an opal? Mineralogical Magazine, 24, 503-515. Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society. [SCI]
DOI: 10.1180/minmag.1936.024.155.01
Post, J.L. & Noble, P.N. (1993). The near-infrared combination band frequencies of dioctahedral smectites, micas, and illites. Clays and Clay Minerals. [SCI]
DOI: 10.1346/CCMN.1993.0410601

Closing Notes

Pink Opal

The water content in pink opal typically ranges from 4-10% by weight. This structural water is critical to the stone's stability. if lost through heat, dry air, or chemical exposure, the opal can craze (develop fine surface cracks) or dehydrate permanently.

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What to do with Pink Opal next

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