The opal will be placed in a special case in the walkway between the museum?s new wing and old wing, said Gábor Papp, an expert on minerals at the museum.
Preliminary tests on the opal show it to be about 15 million years old. Not only the opal?s size, but its colour make it extraordinary, said Papp. It contains yellow, greenish-brown and greenish-yellow.
The so-called common opal was found in a valley near the village of Kisnán in northeast Hungary. Mining operations in the area have turned up opals before, but never of this size, Papp said.
Hungary was one of the world?s biggest producers of fine opals during the second half of the 19th century, Papp noted. Many of the opals came from the Veresvágás mines in present-day Slovakia. The mines were closed, however, in 1920, because Australian mines could turn out the stones for cheaper.
There are still many opals to be found in mines Hungary?s Börzsöny and Tokaji regions, Papp said.
