Dinosaur bones shimmering with opal reveal a new species in Australia

Three decades ago, opal miner Bob Foster was getting frustrated while digging around in his mining field just outside of Lightning Ridge, a dust-swept town in outback New South Wales. Foster and his family spent hours a day searching for a glimmer of rainbow-shaded gems embedded in the rocks 40 feet underground. But all they found were a bunch of dinosaur bones. “We would see these things that looked like horses,” says Foster. “Then we would just smash them up to see if there were any opals inside.”