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Hello, my name is Murray Donovan.   Born raised and still living in Atlantic Canada. I have been interested in rocks and rock hounding since I was a small boy. My favorite hobby was always playing on the beach and collecting rocks.   After I graduated from High School I attended the University of New Brunswick in my home province and obtained a Batchelor's degree in Geology.   I loved studying about rock in University so my degree came quite easily for me. I had several summer jobs while attending University including; Geological Survey of Canada at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Department of Natural Resourses geological mapping, Billiton exploration looking for tin tungsten, and Noranda mines looking for gold deposits.
As if that wasn't lucky enough after I graduated I worked at a gold mine near my home with Noranda then afterwards at the mine geologist directly for Gordex Minerals.   After working for several years in exploration and mine opperations I went back to my roots of rock hounding. This brought me to Australia where I visited towns like Andamooka and Coober Pedy. It was more like a treasure hunt than a vacation. I could feel it in the air! I purchased all the geology maps they had available to me and started to study.   After a bit of learning the rock types there and where to start searching I went out to the outback where I started searching for opal and was quite successful. Although it was very hot the dry air was not as bad as you may think. Even the flies that pester you were not bad like the black flies and mosquito's back home. After a few months I had collected quite an assortment of opal and returned back home where I developed this Web Site. I tried to keep the prices low compared to what others were asking for similar quality opal.   Now the Australian opal feilds are mined out and there are not any miners still working full time. They all have left to go mine in the Gold mines near Wollmera in South Australia not too far from the old opal fields.
It saddened me to think that the opal mining was done in Australia but as luck would have it opal was discovered in Ethiopia in a place called Wollo. This discovery came in 2008 and I was more than ready to get some.  Over all the Ethiopian Wollo opal was much brighter in color and had way more crystal opal than in Australia.   The prices were a fraction of what you could get similar Australian opal for. The word was it was not stable because 40% of the rough would crack upon cutting. After cutting however the stones remain stable and I've had cut and rough Wollo opal that has remained uncracked for 4 years now. There was also a discovery in Shewa province in Ethiopia that proved to be mostly unstable.   GIA of America has recognized Wollo opal as a stable alternative to Australian opal in 2010. Now the prices are rising rapidly just like they did in Australia.
Murray Donovan                        Endalkachew Boru
29 Ossekeag Ct.
Hampton, N.B.                           Addis Ababa
Canada                                    Ethiopia
E5N 5Z5                                   25- 191 131 1396
(506) 832 2048                         endosb@gmail.com
contact@opalrough.ca