Made by Lewis

WHERE IS IT? COOBER PEDY is a town in Northern South Australia, 846kms North of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. It has 1684 people living in it. Coober Pedy is sometimes called The Opal City because 80 percent of the world’s opals are found in Coober Pedy. I am here

COOBER PEDY CLIMATE It is in a desert so it is very hot. It gets cold in winter at nights but it doesn’t rain very much.

What is an opal and how are opals formed? Silica mixes with water and forms a gel. Over many thousands of years under ground, the gel hardens and forms an opal. An opal is a precious gem. Opals sometimes are called a rainbow in a rock because the light reflects lots of colour off the water inside the rock. They can be all different colours.

HOW WE MINE FOR OPALS First they buy a miner’s licence and lease. They use a drilling rig to drill a shaft. Then the miners pick away with their digging tools looking for opal seems. Then they shovel the dirt into the scrap pile. They use a blower to suck the waste dirt out of the hole and dump it into a pile on the surface. When they find an opal seem they carefully pick it out of the rock. The opals are sold to wholesalers but they are cleaned first.

OPAL MINING TOOLS The tools that opal miners use are Drilling rigs Grinders Blowers Drills Chisels Shovels Pick axes They sometimes use small amounts of dynamite to blast small holes in the rock.

Click on the video to see a Blower in action.

THINGS TO DO AT COOBER PEDY When you visit Coober Pedy, you can go on mining tours, town tours where you go on a bus and look around the town or you can go on underground house tours. There is an underground church you can see as well. But my favourite part was the opal noodling. Opal noodling is where you get to find your own opals from piles of dirt.

Under ground house

Underground buildings are really awesome Underground buildings are really awesome! They stay very cool when it is hot outside.

Please press play to learn about noodling.

Thank you for watching.