Monday, September 28, 2026

Geology in Pop Culture - Taylor Swift's "Opalite"

Taylor Swift's "Opalite"

Released on October 3rd, of 2025 on The Life of a Showgirl album, "Opalite" is the third track on the album and was later released as a single on January 12th, 2026. 

Discussing the album on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Taylor Swift breaks down the meaning of the song and where the name came from. In the interview she mentions a few geologically related items:

  • Opalite is man-made opal
  • Similar to how diamonds can also be man-made
  • Gemstones are mentioned in the chorus like "onyx night" 
She also makes note that the purpose of choosing "opalite" is that life is not always going to give you what you want and you are not always going to get your way. Sometimes you have to make your own happiness, like making an opal.

What is an Opal?

Let's break down the geology into bits and pieces. First, what is an opal and how is it formed?

Per the Dictionary of Geological Terms (3rd ed):

Opal: A mineral or mineral gel, SiO2 • n H2O. It has been shown by electron diffraction to consist of packed spheres of silica; water content is usually 3 to 9%. Opal occurs in most colors, is transparent to nearly opaque, and commonly exhibits a marked play of color. It is deposited at low temperatures and is found in a wide variety of rocks and forms. The transparent colored varieties showing opalescence are valued as gemstones. 

 Opalescence: A milky or somewhat pearly appearance or luster of a mineral, such as that shown by opal and moonstone.  

Crystal boulder opal, courtesy of Opal Galaxy

Natural opals are known for that pearly appearance, such as in the sample above, hence the term for the appearance is opalescence. Their formation is also super unique. Instead of forming molecule by molecule, slowing building up as a crystal, opals forms by the amalgamation of little spheres of silica. Because of this type of formation, opal is not actually classified as a mineral, but a mineraloid. Minerals, by definition, must have a definitive crystal structure, which opals do not. 

SEM Photograph of Opal spheres. Image courtesy of Sechrist et al, 2006.

It is because of these tiny spheres, and the way that they are organized, that opals diffract the light the way they do. The size and spacing of the spheres is what determines the color patterns that are seen. 
Diagram showing the formation of Australian opals. Image courtesy of Opal Galaxy. 

Looking at the geological formation of opals, there are two methods that have produced widespread opals in the geological record. Over 95% of opals in the world are found in Australia. These opals began to form around 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous. At that time Australia was covered by a vast sea, the Great Artesian Basin . 

Opal mining locations within the Great Artesian Basin. Image courtesy of Dans Opals.

Over time the sea slowly evaporated and left behind silica deposits. This silica was transported by groundwater into gaps within the underlying sandstone, ironstone, fossils, and ancient wood and precipitated in those spaces. This occurred over very low temperatures and took a long time, resulting in a stable, non-porous structure, of the opals that formed. These opals formed the opal deposits of Lightning Ridge, Coober Pedy, and the Queensland boulder regions. The slow creep of the groundwater is what allowed the orderly, grid-like, construction of the opals, with the tiny sphere forming even sheets. It is these even sheets that produce the opalescence effect that opals are known for.

Ethiopian opal formation. Image courtesy of Opal Galaxy.  

In contrast to the sedimentary, low temperature, method of formation, Ethiopian opal formed from the hydrothermal waters associated with volcanic activity. The hydrothermal waters reacted with the volcanic ash and rhyolites, dissolving the silica, then reprecipitating it within the voids of the surrounding volcanic rocks. They are also hydrophane, meaning they actively absorb water. This means that they are far more unstable than the Australian opals, and much more chemically reactive. They are also much, much younger, having formed likely in the last few thousand years. 

Coming back to Taylor Swift

Let's look at some of the lyrics for "Opalite", specifically the refrain:
And that's when I told you
It's alright
You were dancing through the lightning strikes
Sleepless in the onyx night
But now the sky is opalite
Oh oh oh oh, oh my Lord
Never met no one like you before
You had to make your own sunshine
But now the sky is opalite
Oh oh oh oh oh

She really does only have the two geological terms in the song and they are "opalite" and "onyx". We will start with the big one, opalite.

What is does the word "Opalite" even mean?

The term "opalite" is a very uncommon word. It does not appear in either my geological dictionary, or my Webster dictionary, nor Merriam-Webster's website, nor the Cambridge Dictionary. 

I was able to find some dictionaries, which did have a result including, Dictionary.com which defines "opalite" as: "an artificial gem resembling an opal." This is akin to Taylor Swift's usage of the word. 

However, there is also a second definition for "opalite", which predates the "artificial" usage of the word. Per 1945's Dictionary of Gems and Gemology:

Opalite - "Term used for impure, colored varieties of common opal." 

Geology.com expands upon this and clarifies, stating that the term opalite is used "as a synonym for common opal (natural opal that does not exhibit play-of-color)."


So we have two usages for "opalite".

What does the geological definition of "opalite" mean?

When we look at the formation of an opal, the orderly arrangement of the micro-spheres is essential to the play of color known as opalescence. If that orderly arrangement is not met, then there is just chaos, and the light effects will be absent. Here you will get what is known as "common opal", or "potch", or ... "opalite". 

Common opal, or "opalite". Image courtesy of geology.com. 

In this instance, opalite refers to the non-opalescent varieties of opal. Or in terms of money, the non-gemstone varieties of opal.

What is the synthetic opal definition of "opalite" mean?

Synthetic, or man-made, is exactly as it sounds. These are opals manufactured by man. Unfortunately, these man made opals are more akin to the geological definitions of opalites than they are to opals because, while they may have some opalescence, they lack the opalescence of natural opals. 

Synthetic opals, AKA opalites. Image coutesy of Synthetic Opals.

Because man-made opalites have such a rigid structure, much more so than even highly ordered natural opals, the opalescence that is achieved has a "lizard skin appearance" and lacks the natural variety and irregular patterns. Per Opal Minded: "Most fake opals show fragments of coloured material trapped in a clear base, giving a “shattered” or artificial sparkle rather than the fluid, shifting flashes of a genuine opal."

SEM image of a man-made opal. Image courtesy of Synthetic Opals.  

However, as you can see in the SEM image above, the structure of the synthetic opalite is very much akin to the structure of the natural opals, but it does give a synthetic appearance, which the natural variety feels more variable.

How could "Sleepless in the onyx night" relate to opalite?

I find it funny that she picked onyx, because like opal, it is also composed of silica. Onyx, however, is a mineral, not a mineraloid like opals are. Onyx is a variety of the mineral chalcedony, which in of itself is a variety of quartz. Chalcedony, and therefore onyx, is comprised of microcrystalline quartz instead of one big crystal of quartz like amethyst. 

A black and white variety of onyx. Image courtesy of GeologyScience.

What makes onyx a distinctive variety of chalcedony, is that it has straight, parallel bands of alternating colors, typically black and white. This means that while onyx typically has a "black and white" banded structure, it is distinctly different from natural opalite, both in variety of color and the variety of shapes possible with the color patterns. 

In Summary

Taylor Swift builds Opalite as a means to make ones own happiness from the onyx night. And the fact that you can physically make the synthetic opalite from onyx, plays even more into her song by allowing people to make their own happiness from what they are give. When life hands you lemons and all that. And that's pretty cool.
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