Good afternoon yall! Ivity right here to share a few of my ideas on an usually (heatedly) mentioned matter; hydrophane opals!

I already know that I’m certain to ruffle a couple of feathers with this dialogue as a result of there’s already a considerable amount of deceptive info in addition to confusion as to what hydrophane and non-hydrophane means, how the phrases are used within the business, in addition to an ever evolving sport of phone relating to speaking opal properties between communities that talk vastly completely different languages on their day by day foundation.

To offer my very own credentials to clarify why I really feel assured in making the claims that I will likely be; i’m at present in class for a twin diploma program in environmental engineering and mineralogy for my bachelors set to graduate on the finish of 2026, with plans to pursue my masters and doctorates by way of mineralogy by particularly specializing in the opal business itself: addressing questions on remedies, progress situations, business requirements, and so on. I’ve lower and polished opals since 2020, and have dealt with opals for making jewellery since 2014. I’m additionally a fan of etymology, human language and the methods through which people talk has advanced all through historical past. I can’t declare to be “all-knowing”, solely declare to have a deep appreciation for the issues that spark my curiosity that has motivated me to hunt out as a lot instructional materials as I’m able to on them. I’m additionally ALWAYS open to correction if that correction is properly based by the accessible info.

So lets start; why am I posting this?

There appears to be a considerable amount of conflicting info relating to hydrophane and non-hydrophane opals, and I can virtually assure that you’ve got personally seen either side of the arguments when you’ve got achieved any quantity of studying on the topic. From my private experiences with coping with Ethiopian brokers, they have an inclination to name the opals that can not be taken out of water/mineral oil specimen jars as “non-hydrophane”, and I consider this comes from a misunderstanding of the qualifying prefix “non-“ between their native languages and English. I’ll clarify my reasoning in a minute, however first let’s discover what the phrases imply.

Etymology of the phrase Hydrophane;

Hydrophane takes its prefix and suffix from the Greek prefix and suffix of “hýdōr-” (water) and “-phanēs” (to look/to indicate/to disclose), bringing us to the fashionable English variant of “hydrophane”, which means “water revealing opal”. [fun sidefact; there is some historical evidence to suggest ancient greeks and romans were aware of ethiopian opals]. Taking this definition, we will extrapolate the which means to be opals which have their magnificence revealed by way of water.

The Mineralogy;

An opal that absorbs water, by definition, is hydrophanic. Attributable to group guidelines I’m refraining from linking a bunch of educational articles, although I encourage these on this topic to look utilizing phrases like “mindat”, “.edu”, “educational article” in your search of hydrophane schooling. Now, the antithesis to a Hydrophane, for us that talk English natively, could be “Non-hydrophane”, an opal that on no account absorbs or expels water from its mass. In different phrases, a non-hydrophane is a “secure” species of opal that may not soak up water and cannot “dry out”. A hydrophane is ready to soak up water, expels that water, and it’s the means of drying out itself that causes hydrophanic opals to crack and craze; as completely different areas of the opal evaporate water out at completely different charges the opal experiences a heterogenous stage of stress all through the mineraloid construction alongside the boundaries of the completely different evaporation charges, thus cracking the construction to accommodate the completely different charges of inside growth and contraction. These completely different charges of evaporation are largely attributable to that a part of the opals hint ingredient make-up (for instance, the silica spheroids dimension/density, presence of different parts throughout formation interval, and so on).

The place I consider the misusage of the phrases “hydrophane” and “non-hydrophane” stems from is the truth that the broadly spoken languages for Ethiopia is Amharic and Oromo, each languages that would not have direct translated equivalents to the english “hydrophane”/“non-hydrophane”, and additional issues with each languages very sparsely utilizing qualifying prefixes reminiscent of “non-“. From discussions that I’ve had with the brokers that I’ve labored with, they’re utilizing “non-hydrophane” to say “opal that can not be faraway from water” relatively than how an english speaker would perceive it as “opal that doesn’t soak up water”. I consider this presumably misconstrued which means is a big contributor as to why there’s a lot confusion relating to the phrases.

To be clear; the utilization of the phrases “hydrophane” and “non-hydrophane” predate the industrial mining of Ethiopian opals, as opals from around the globe can have this property; it’s recorded in Australian opals, American opals, Mexican Opals and plenty of, many extra localities. In reality, this phrase might be discovered within the oxford dictionary way back to the late 1700’s to explain an opal that turns into translucent when submerged in water.

Why i consider this issues;

As all of us aficionados know, it is extremely vital to have a correct care routine when coping with hydrophanic Opals, to stop them from being broken and dropping their shade. For individuals to grasp easy methods to take care of these Opals I consider that it is very important standardize the understanding of the which means of the phrases used with them, a purpose that I do know is way simpler mentioned than achieved. I’m additionally engaged on an academic portion alone web site to assist fight this as finest as I can by compiling all the instructional materials that I’ve been capable of finding on the topic. if you’re personally on this be happy to message me as I’m once more making an attempt to chorus from sharing hyperlinks and going towards group guidelines.

I might love to listen to individuals’s ideas on this matter, as it’s one which i discover deeply fascinating.

Video of a Hydrophanic opal that I polished as a specimen as a result of it arriving to me already dried out and extremely cracked as a enjoyable strategy to being consideration to the submit.

Cheers r/opals!