Could the Mississippi Opal become the state’s first official gemstone?

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Practically twenty years after it was first found in Mississippi, a push is underway to make opal the state’s official gemstone.

In December, the State Board of Registered Skilled Geologists signed off on a decision asking the legislature to make the Mississippi Opal the official gemstone of the state.

The transfer was backed by the Mississippi State Oil and Gasoline Board and the Mississippi Geological Society.

In January, lawmakers on each side of the State Capitol authored laws to codify the request.

Rep. Becky Currie, the principal writer of the Home model, hopes to carry the measure out of committee this week.

“In Mississippi, it could be the one stone thought-about a gemstone, and, so, I simply thought, ‘Nicely, if it’s the one one now we have, it must be the state stone,” she mentioned. “In one among my counties, Copiah County, which I symbolize, there may be quite a lot of it.”

Opal is the one gemstone within the state to be thought-about a treasured gem and may be characterised as having “good flashes of fireside, ranging in coloration from pink to inexperienced,” based on the Mississippi Division of Environmental High quality’s web site.

Jim Starnes, director of the Floor Geology Division for MDEQ, in addition to president of the State Board of Registered Skilled Geologists, says the measure if handed might generate extra curiosity within the sciences and the state’s pure setting.

“We have already got a state fossil, which is the fossil whale. We even have a state stone, which is petrified wooden,” he mentioned. “However what we don’t have is… we wouldn’t have a state gemstone.”

A part of the reason being geologists within the state didn’t know Mississippi had any gems till 2004.

That’s when a research carried out by the Mississippi Geological Survey found the stone in Claiborne County.

Additional research confirmed that the dear stone may be present in one thing often known as the “Catahoula Formation,” which runs alongside 11 counties in South and Central Mississippi. These counties are Claiborne, Copiah, Covington, Hinds, Jasper, Jones, Rankin, Simpson, Warren, and Wayne.

“This was fashioned by volcanic ash,” he mentioned. “There was lots of volcanic exercise occurring out west at a time referred to as the ‘Late Oligocene interval’’ so we’re taking a look at about 20 million years in the past.”

On the time, the ocean ranges had been greater, and counties within the Catahoula Formation had geological options extra just like the Mississippi River Delta – the place the river enters the Gulf of Mexico.

“And that volcanic ash was unfold over North America. As you realize, the prevailing winds had been carrying the stuff from west to east, and it was deposited with the sand and that’s what ended up forming sandstone. And, so, it’s that volcanic ash in there that chemically [decomposed] to make opal.”

Starnes was impressed to push for making opal the state’s gemstone when he was working with Yinan Wang, the writer of The 50 State Gems and Minerals: A Guidebook for Aspiring Geologists, which was revealed in 2020.

“Mainly, what it’s, it’s inspiring younger youngsters to be all for geology and earth sciences. We had been speculated to if we didn’t have a state mineral or state gem, we had been speculated to nominate one for the guide,” he mentioned.

“And Mississippi is a coastal plain state… Coastal plain states simply aren’t identified for gems. Often, you see that sort of stuff in arduous rock nation and within the mountains and locations like that… Having one thing as treasured as opal in Mississippi, it’s sort of an incredible factor.”

You’ll find out extra concerning the Mississippi Opal and efforts to make it the state gemstone on the upcoming Mississippi Gem and Mineral Society’s sixty fourth Annual Present, slated for Feb. 25-26 on the Mississippi Commerce Mart.

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