If you ever get a chance to talk to an opal miner, you’ll find that he…or rarely, she, uses a language you might not understand (even if you can penetrate the Australin accent!).
The language of mining:
Anyone will know what an auger is…a drill system used to open up shafts, or tunnels. But what’s a ballroom? That’s when the miners widen a particular tunnel in search of opal concentrated in its walls.
A Calwell Drill (also called CAldwell, but Calwell is correct) is a 36 inch diameter drill, used to sink shafts.
A duffer is a hole where its miners did not find any opal.
A fault is a break in the ground, usually associated with movement (mild earthquakes). Miners typically sink their shafts along these faults, which are also called slides. Surface indicators of fault lines are called lineaments.
A field is a contiguous area where opal is mined.
Kaolinite is the clay in which some opal is found. Another term for this clay is Kopi.
Mullock is the waste from an opal mine brought to the surface - the slurry that is washed from the opals. Unsightly, it usually must be “reclaimed” if the land on which it stands is to be used for anything else. This waste is also called “tailings.”
An open cut it a large pit dug to the opal level using a bulldozer.
What’s a pegging party? It’s the rush to “peg claims” stake out the land one intends to mine - in the neighborhood of a new shaft.
A pillar is a portion of ther opal level left in place to support the ceiling of the mine.
Seam opal is a relatively continuous sheet of opal found in a parent rock. Usually horizontal or parallel to the surface. A pipe is a large round tube of opal.
A “vertical seam” is one that, as the name implies, is vertical.
A self-tipper is a bucket which auomatically raises to the surface and dumps mine waste. A windlass is a hand winch used to wind rope, which lifts a bucket to the surface.
A spider is a piece of metal with a candle stuck on one end and a spike on the other, used to provide ilght for mining.
Traces are very thin lines of opal which indicate that a concentration may be near.
Lightning Ridge
A “steel band” is a line of very hard sandstone often found just above the opal level. Found at Lightning Ridge
Yowah
Yowah Nuts are small ironstone concretions with precious opal inclusions, found in Yowah, in Queensland.
Bibliography
Opal Adventures. Paul B. Downing, PhD.
