Opals from Brazil, a new frontier of precious opals.
The town of Pedro II in the Piauí region has been internationally known for many years as a source of some of the most beautiful and prized precious opals in the world. The high value of Brazilian opals is due not only to the beauty of the gems, which display infinite and incredible plays of color, but also to the quality of the opal, for its stability over the years.
Apart from its undisputed beauty, the main characteristic of the Pedro II opal is its stability, it never develops fractures and its colours remain unchanged over time.
The reason for the added value of this opal is very simple. The opal mined in the area comes from secondary deposits formed far from its original source millions of years ago. Precious opal formed in sedimentary rocks in distant geological eras, which over time were eroded, then transported and spread across large alluvial deposits. The result is a very ancient rough opal, and therefore particularly durable and stable.
Opal prospecting and mining are entrusted to garimpeiros, who extract the rare opal with simple tools and considerable difficulty. To extract the raw mineral, they mostly use a few tools, such as a shovel, a pickaxe, and a sieve used to dry-sift the extracted earth.
The quality of the opals mined in the Pedro II area is equal to the best opal collected in Australia, with the absolute certainty of the stability of the gem and therefore also of its value over time.
OpaleMio selects a wide selection of high-quality Brazilian opals for its collection on sale.
