White Cliffs Opal field and township is located approximately 95 kilometres North North West of the township of Wilcannia in NSW. Wilcannia is located on the Darling River and Barrier Highway some 192 kilometres east of Broken Hill or 980 kilometres west of Sydney in Parish of Kirk, County of Yungnulgra. The opal is recorded as being discovered by George Hooley, Alf Richardson et al. in 1889 on Momba Station. The testimony given by Tully Wollaston at the Royal Commission of 1901 concerning opal mining at White Cliffs records that samples of opal were sent to Adelaide from White Cliffs by Hooley in the summer of 1889.

The township of Lightning Ridge NSW, originally named Wallangulla, is located 750 kilometres North West of Sydney and just off the Castlereagh Highway in the Counties of Finch and Narran. Opal is reported as first being mined by a boundary rider named Charlie Nettleton in 1902, though it is described in the literature that opal may have been known before this time. In 1902, Nettleton sent a parcel of Lightning Ridge Black opal to Edmund Murphy and Wollaston in White Cliffs for sale. Since that time, Lightning Ridge Black opal has gained the reputation of the best Black Opal in the world. Outer lying fields of Coocoran, Glengarry, and Sheepyard have enhanced the opal mining areas in this district.

The township of Coober Pedy is situated on the edge of the Stuart Range in South Australia, 838 kilometres by road north of Adelaide. The historical literature records that Jim Hutchinson was leading a prospecting party looking for gold on behalf of the New Colorado Prospecting syndicate and investigating quartz reefs near Lake Phillipson. On their return journey, camping at the foot of the Stuart Range at Carrygallama Creek, the men were out searching for water. Young Willie Hutchinson, at the age of fifteen years was reported to have found opal on the 1st February 1915. The syndicate pegged the first claim on the 9th February. It has been suggested that the name “Coober Pedy” was derived from the Aboriginal “Kupa” (or Goober) meaning “uninitiated person or white man” and “piti” meaning waterhole or hole. Hence “kupa piti” a “white man’s hole” or “burrow” which could have referred to miners living underground in dugouts.

Andamooka township is located 640 kilometres by road north of Adelaide and approximately 110 kilometres north east from Woomera on the road to Roxby Downs and almost on the western shore of Lake Torrens in South Australia. The opal was discovered in “floaters” after an outback thunderstorm at what is known as one-tree hill or Treloars Hill by Sam Brooks and Roy Shepherd. They took the stones to the station owner at Andamooka Homestead, a Mr Foulis. The first miners were Treloar and Evans who in 1933 produced about ₤962 worth of stones.

Mintabie township is located 40 kilometres by road west of Marla on the Stuart Highway, some 160 kilometres south of the South Australian border with the Northern Territory. It is 270 kilometres north of Coober Pedy or 1100 kilometres north of Adelaide. The literature suggests that the Mintabie fields were discovered by Larry O’Toole who was sinking water wells in the area. The date is uncertain either 1921 or 1922. There are some unconfirmed records of Aboriginals travelling to Coober Pedy with Mintabie type opal. The Mintabie fields are on Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal lands and a permit is required to travel to the fields. During the mid-1980’s opal production from Mintabie outstripped opal production from Coober Pedy and every other Australian opal field, but it had declined by 1990. Mintabie was probably the first opal mining area in which substantial use was made of bulldozers and open cut mining techniques.

The Queensland boulder opal fields occupy the largest or most geographically disperse opal occurrences throughout Western Queensland. The area goes from the Yowah opal district near to the NSW border and 70 kilometres west of Cunnamulla (some 1250 kilometres west of Brisbane), to as far north as Winton in Central Western Queensland, 180 kilometres north west of Longreach or 900 kilometres west of Rockhampton. As mentioned earlier, the first discovery of opal occurred at Listowel Downs on Blackall Station in 1869. In 1870 opal was discovered 100km to the east in “Barcoo” country not far west from Charleville, by Rev WB Clark, reported to the Royal Society of NSW in 1872 and displayed in an exhibition in the Vienna Museum of Natural History. In 1879 Herbert William Bond successfully floated an opal mining Company in London based on the ownership or leasing arrangements of several of the central Queensland opal mines.