Australian boulder opal!  This brown matrix is covered in cracks which have filled in with flashy precious opal.  She is beautiful, but it is hard to appreciate her colors because she is just such a Little Guy.  Let’s get closer.

Pretty good!  Under magnification, we can really see the fire of that opal filling in the tiny cracks.  This is about the level of magnification that my old microscope could manage.  Anyway, let’s get closer.

The fire is intensifying!  More colors are appearing!  Tiny fireworks invisible to the naked eye!  But we can get closer.

YES, that FIRE!!  But I want to be closer than that!!  I demand we get closer!!

YES!  GOOD!!  CLOSER!!  ALL UP IN THIS ROCK’S PERSONAL SPACE!!!

YES!! YES!! YEEEEES!!!!

Oh, so when YOU invade personal space its “interesting” and “scientific”, but when I do it suddenly it becomes “harassment” and I “need to get away and respect the restraint order”