Opalescent starburst patterns were formed on a convex surface by sedimenting colloidal silica spheres with a low silica volume fraction. The opalescent starburst patterns were also formed by the radial expansion of the meniscus when sedimented samples were slowly dried. The dependence of starburst formation on the rate of sedimentation and drying was experimentally investigated. Self-assembled opals fabricated from colloidal silica spheres grew vertically along the [100] direction of the face-centered cubic lattice. Elongated single-crystal crystallites nearly 1 cm wide and a few centimeters long formed in the curve at the bottom of an ordinary laboratory beaker from sedimenting 200- and 290-nm colloidal silica spheres. The elongated crystallites appear to be the result of an increased sedimentation rate, which creates favorable growth conditions. This is caused by the presence of the curve in the beaker and the spheres' inability to expand into the interior of the beaker before being sedimented. A narrowing of crystallites is shown to result from the competition between neighboring crystallites and large crystallites are shown to result from a lack of competition during their formation. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Inc.