Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia | Museum

Australian Opal Centre

Locality: Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia

Phone: +61 2 6829 1667

Address: 3/11 Morilla Street 2834 Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia

Website: http://www.australianopalcentre.com

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• Non-profit organisation
• Museum

25.01.2022 Check out Australia Post's Opalised Fossils stamp issue hot off the press! This latest stamp release, created in partnership with the AOC, features wonderful opalised fossils from the AOC collection photographed by Robert A. Smith, including a pine cone and a theropod dinosaur tooth from Lightning Ridge, and opalised wood from Koroit in Queensland. Find out more about how Australia Post stamps are printed here > https://bit.ly/31Wekzt... To purchase your own Australia Post Opalised Fossils stamp issue, please visit > https://bit.ly/3iHHVUf Photographs: Australian Postal Corporation, reproduced with permission.

23.01.2022 Another great video on opalised fossils from IDU Curiosity, this time featuring Dr Elizabeth Smith and Dr Phil Bell - enjoy!

23.01.2022 It's time for an update...and there's so much to tell! Can't be in Lightning Ridge on Thursday night? We're sorry you can't join us but don't worry - we'll email an update to members and post an update here after the event.

21.01.2022 Opening at the AOC 6.30pm Wednesday 9 December: Sauropots 2020 - unprecedented pots for unprecedented times! Join us to celebrate and shop for pots! These very special pots were made by Lightning Ridge's Graeme Anderson using clay from the opal mines. They were decorated by artist and palaeontologist Elizabeth T. Smith, inspired by life 100 million years ago as revealed by the opal mines and their fossils. Graeme and Elizabeth are donating 100% of proceeds - yep, the whole lo...t - to the AOC! Please show your appreciation by liking and sharing this post or buying a pot. You can't lock a good potter down! COVID safety measures will be in place.

21.01.2022 Did you know there is a SONG about Lightning Claw, the Lightning Ridge megaraptorid dinosaur known from opalised fossils in the Australian Opal Centre collection? To learn more about Lightning Claw (and hear the song!), read this post from Dinosaurs Down Under and join Professor Flint's free live Facebook broadcast.

18.01.2022 The new Australia Post Opalised Fossils stamp series wouldn't have been possible without AOC Special Projects Officer, Jenni Brammall, and Senior Collections Manager for Earth Sciences at the South Australian Museum, Ben McHenry. Australia’s opalised fossils provide rich insights into the history of life on our ancient continent into how Australia, its geology, landscapes, plants and animals came to be as they are, and how fortunate we are to live in this remarkable place...." - Jenni Brammall. I’m excited and proud! Opal fossils are one of the nation’s wonders and this is a great chance to bring their story to the Australian public." - Ben McHenry. Read more about the wonderful world of opalised fossils and Jenni and Ben's involvement in Australia Post's new stamp release here > https://bit.ly/30YkEHC

17.01.2022 It's time to meet the AOC Project Team - the wonderfully talented group of people who are helping to bring the new Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin designed building to life. As the AOC building's Mechanical Engineer, SEiD Director Mark Henderson is responsible for designing the new facility's mechanical ventilation systems. The building will use a clever combination of passive and mechanical ventilation systems to keep it comfortable in extreme conditions, while using less powe...r than a conventional building of its size. Mark says: "It’s a very important building as it will display leadership and engineered sustainable solutions as part of providing a significant research, tourist and public facility, which will be the first of its kind featuring the Australian opal industry and region." Read more about Mark and the AOC's mechanical ventilation systems here > https://bit.ly/3gqBYKJ

12.01.2022 Read how architecture is helping to preserve Winton’s history through the Waltzing Matilda Centre and Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, built by the community to celebrate the incredible stories of prehistoric Winton > https://bit.ly/2E138cA

10.01.2022 How do you provide fresh, clean water to drink year round when there's no access to a permanent water supply? AOC Project Team member Adam Keeble has taken up the challenge! Adam is a Senior Hydraulics Engineer from Stantec Australia and is responsible for ensuring the new AOC and its occupants will have access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Adam says: "The AOC is a very important project as it illustrates the way in which buildings moving forward can be ‘green’. As ...water becomes scarcer and generating energy becomes more damaging to the environment, it’s great to see that when we put our minds to it, we can develop smart and sustainable buildings that protect the world we live in." Read more about the solutions Adam has developed to ensure the sustainability of the new AOC building by balancing water usage with rainwater that is available to harvest and wastewater that will be generated > http://www.australianopalcentre.com/adam-keeble-profile

09.01.2022 The AOC's Lightning Ridge Fossil Dig 2020 is done and dusted! We’d like to thank everyone who participated and supported the two-week event and can’t wait to share some photos and finds with you soon. In the meantime, take a sneak peek at Week 1 of the Dig and some of the fossils uncovered courtesy of Dig partner Australian Geographic! > https://bit.ly/2Z7RfJM

08.01.2022 See you all there...

05.01.2022 We're thrilled to see our beautiful national gemstone and the new Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin designed Australian Opal Centre building included in The Australian's Top Four shining examples of natural Australian treasures > https://bit.ly/3gREMQa

03.01.2022 As Director of environmental design consultancy Atelier Ten, Paul Stoller brings impressive Australian and international environmental design experience - including Melbourne's Federation Square and the new Sydney Modern Project at the Art Gallery of NSW - to enable the Australian Opal Centre (AOC) project to achieve sustainability outcomes developed in the architectural concepts created by Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin. Paul says: "My role in the AOC project team has been f...irst to verify that the sustainability ideas embedded in the original architectural concepts will all work (they will!) and then tune these up through technical analysis. The AOC is a rare project that has committed to the highest levels of sustainability and embodied that commitment in every aspect of the design." Read more about Paul's involvement in the new AOC building including utilising thousands of meters of underground piping to bring cooling into the building from the earth, and figuring out how to house the AOC's precious opalised fossil collection in the hot Lightning Ridge climate > https://bit.ly/3l0WPGX

03.01.2022 Despite COVID-19 impacts, the Australian Opal Centre building project is moving fast. Find out the latest about what's happening with the project and our talented building team, other recent AOC activity, program updates, our AOC Founders Campaign, and more here > https://bit.ly/38Yq33R

03.01.2022 Exciting news! Australia Post's Opalised Fossils stamp issue is released today, coinciding with the first day of the AOC's annual Lightning Ridge Fossil Dig in partnership with the Australian Geographic Society. So how did this fantastic initiative come about? In June 2019, a researcher from Australia Post Philatelic contacted the AOC with the idea of some stamps featuring opalised fossils. We were so excited - we'd been thinking about opalised fossil stamps for years! The A...OC provided a selection of opalised fossil photographs by Robert A. Smith for the Australia Post team to choose from. We suggested that the stamps represent the opal fields of South Australia and Queensland as well as NSW, because opal is our National Gemstone and opalised fossils are Australian National Treasures to be shared with everybody; and we put Australia Post in touch with the South Australian Museum so it could be involved too. The stamps represent fossil plants, invertebrate and vertebrate animals, with a pine cone from Lightning Ridge and opalised wood from Koroit in Queensland, a moon snail from the ancient inland sea of Coober Pedy, and the tooth of a theropod dinosaur from Lightning Ridge. They represent the diversity of life in ancient Australia as revealed by incredible fossil discoveries from Australia's outback opal mines. More wonderful opalised fossils from the AOC feature on other products in the opalised fossil stamp series. The whole process has taken more than a year - the blink of an eyelid after the more than 100 million years that the fossils were in the ground! The AOC congratulates Australia Post Collectables and photographer Robert A. Smith, and most especially the opal miners and opal lovers who discover these national treasures and donate them to the AOC. Of course there are dozens of other opalised fossils worthy of postage stamps, so we're hoping for another series! To purchase your own Australia Post Opalised Fossils stamps and collectables, please visit https://bit.ly/3iHHVUf. SPECIAL OFFER: The AOC is offering five only celebratory packs, each including a copy of the collectable, out-of-print book Black Opal Fossils of Lightning Ridge signed by author Elizabeth T. Smith and photographer Robert T. Smith and packaged with a booklet of 10 stamps to use, a beautiful stamp pack and first day cover to keep, and three opalised fossil postcards, for the special price of $175 including postage in Australia (international postage at cost) - simply direct message us to find out more. Stamp photographs: Australian Postal Corporation, reproduced with permission.

03.01.2022 Thank you and congratulations to Pamela McGilvary who is our newest $30,000 AOC Founder! Pamela is a past AOC Fossil Dig participant with a passion for palaeontology and archaeology, and believes the new Murcutt + Lewin designed AOC building is a vital gamechanger for regional Australia now more than ever. "This is an important building for Australia and to be able to secure two architects of the calibre of Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin to build this icon is just fantastic. T...his showcase of opalised fossils will be a drawcard for Lightning Ridge and its community long into the future. Australians, international audiences and researchers will have ready access to this priceless catalogue of our national gemstone. I am proud to have contributed to it." Read more about our wonderful new AOC Founder Pamela here > https://bit.ly/3jycxsA If you would like to know more about joining our growing group of special AOC Founders, please email [email protected] or call Olivia on 0400 225 751.