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In short:
Coober Pedy is renowned for its productive opal mining industry, but Aboriginal peoples' involvement in the practice has not been widely acknowledged.
Aboriginal miners have participated in the industry since at least 1915, mining their own claims and working independently, as well as for others.
What's next?
Today, artist George Cooley's opal mining experience inspires his award-winning paintings.
The iconic image of an opal miner living underground to escape the outback heat has long been synonymous with Coober Pedy.
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of people who have died.
Far less known is the history of Aboriginal people's participation in the industry since 1915.
The South Australian outback town has a rich multicultural history, and has been home to generations of immigrants chasing riches in the opal fields.
But the involvement of Indigenous people, located on the traditional lands of the Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara people, isn't often spotlighted.
"It's a very, very untold history," opal miner, senior community leader and artist George Cooley said.
"Aboriginals have always been involved in the opal mines, even at the early stages when opal was found.
"The early history has never been recorded.
"Those … explorers [who] discovered things didn't mention that they had an Aboriginal party with them."
Boom in opal mining
The name Coober Pedy is derived from the Aboriginal term "kupa piti", meaning "white man in a hole".
"There's a story in the Aboriginal circle … we weren't digging or mining opal like they are doing today," Mr Cooley said.
"It was one of those objects that we knew was there, back before white man came.
"[But] we [didn't] value those things … life was more valuable, the food and that sort of thing was probably more valuable than the riches, because it was plenty available."
However, by the 1940s, Aboriginal people were heavily involved in finding opals.
The Great Depression had put the brakes on the industry in Coober Pedy, but fortunes began to change when, in 1946, Aboriginal woman Tottie Bryant made a significant find at the Eight Mile field.
It instigated an opal boom.
Many Aboriginal people participated as "noodlers", sifting through the dirt from the mine shafts with digging sticks, rakes and sieves looking for opal.
Mr Cooley started opal mining when he was just 16 years old.
"When the opportunity came … I started looking for opal myself — I worked in many of the fields, up and down," he said.
"I done a lot of work by hand, because we never had machinery back then.
"That was a good life."
Many people owned their own opal mining claim — a government-issued license granting the right to dig for the gem — including Mr Cooley.
Independence for miners
The late Mike Harding, a historian who studied Aboriginal peoples' involvement in the opal fields, sought to address this lack of acknowledgement.
"Aboriginal people seriously engaged in the northern South Australian opal industry for several decades … in a variety of tasks that required patience and skill," Mr Harding wrote.
"The autonomous nature of the opal industry appealed to Aboriginal people, who were effectively their own 'bosses', and could work when it suited them.
"The … opal fields enabled Aboriginal people to participate in the market economy while also engaging in their traditional economy, thus allowing them to maintain a significant degree of cultural continuity."
When asked what attracted him to mining, Mr Cooley agreed autonomy was a key factor.
"One of the things I loved about opal is that it was a means of an income for me," he said.
"I found as an opal miner, I was independent. I didn't work for a boss. It was up to you to go out and look for it, and when you do find it, it gives you a sense of ownership.
"I always talk about this ownership — when you find something, you know its value, that you're the one that's got the ability to sell it … you know you didn't borrow it from anywhere, you earned it."
Desert scenery an inspiration
Mr Cooley's paintings of the Kaṉku-Breakaways, a striking outback site located just outside Coober Pedy, have been featured in galleries around the country.
And his background in opal mining has inspired his artistic style.
"I've actually seen the colours of opal," he said.
"I've seen the above-ground experience of what nature can expose … the light of the colours and the variety of erosion and landscapes, as well as in the mining."
His time spent open-cut mining with bulldozers has also influenced his artwork.
"The variety of colours, and then you read the ground, the fault lines," he said.
"The brilliant colours of opal, and of top high-quality opal … that blends in with the environment."