Miners soon saw the benefits of technology – drilling test shafts to gauge their chances before beginning serious excavation, using jackhammers instead of pickaxes, blasting with dynamite, or bringing in the bulldozers. Bulldozers are employed to remove overburden and expose the level where it is shallow. Spotters follow behind watching for traces of opal, and any seam found is then worked over by handpick.

A variety of tools are needed to mine the opals, some more complex or more effective than others. There has been a rapid increase in the use of mining machines since the 1970s. Tunneling machines with revolving cutting heads and small underground front-end loaders (boggers) have been introduced to streamline opal mining and dramatically increase productivity.

Boulder opal is one of the rarest and most valuable forms of opal found in Australia and makes up less than 5% of all opal mined. It is very sparsely distributed through South West Queensland.  It is predicted that boulder opal is going to run out in the next 10 years because of the difficulty clearing Native Title and EPA requirements of rehabilitation.  Native Title is the process of gaining agreement from the local Aboriginal tribes before mining takes place. This is an extremely difficult and time consuming process. Added to this is the EPA requirement that all mines need to be “back-filled” and trees planted when the mining is finished. This process alone can send a miner bankrupt if he has not found “colour” in his “dig”. Added to this are the onerous paperwork requirements, with “enough forms to sink a ship” the average miner just does not have the motivation to comply with all of the government regulations. So, as a result there are fewer and fewer miners on the field!