What is Amber?
Types of Amber
The Legends of Amber
Jurassic Park?
Amber is the fossilized resin of now extinct coniferous trees, such as Pinus Succinifera which grew in the Eocene and Oligocene periods just prior to the Ice Age, about 55 million years ago. It is found amongst sedimentary rocks.
Amber is characteristically a golden orange colour. Other rarer forms exist in violet, orange, yellow, black, green and blue.
Amber can be transparent or translucent and may contain air spaces that give it a cloudy appearance. (heating the mber in oil fills these spaces and makes the amber transparent). When rubbed vigorously with a cloth, amber becomes electrically charged by friction.
Extint and extanct species of insects, lichens, mosses and pine needles may be found encased in samples of amber, having been trapped millions of years ago when the resin was still sticky.
Amber can be divided into 4 groups:
Succinite(Baltic) Amber
Burmite(Burmese) Amber
Simetite(Sicilian) Amber
Rumanite(Rumanian) Amber
The last three types are the rarer forms
Baltic amber is the most abundant and can be found along the shores of the Baltic Sea, where it is deposited by great storms, battering it from the ocean floor and recovered via open pit mining.
Burmese amber is recovered by mining of an area in the Hukong Valley. The amber obtained here is generally red or brown in colour.
Sicilian amber is found around the mouth of the Simeto River in Sicily and is generally dark red in colour and even sometimes black. It often shows fluorescence.
Amber is also found in areas along the Samland coast near Kalinigrad, Russia and in Greenland, Alaska, Serbia, Canada, Germany and the U.S.A.
For centuries, Amber has been thought to have medicinal uses both as a cure and as a preventative measure. Amber has been credited with the power to help Arthritis, Asthma, Catarrh, Chest and Lung problems, Croup, Ear infections, Fever, Hay Fever and Tonsillitis.
Amber was either powdered and taken with wine or worn as a necklace. Amber is still popular today in jewellery, although for decorative rather than medicinal purposes.
Any plants and animals embedded in Amber are potentially a source of ancient DNA. But, could this could lead to "Jurassic Park" being possible? According to Dr. Raul Cano, a microbiologist at Cal Poly, although insect DNA can be cloned from the Jurassic Period, it is unlikely that any DNA from Dinosaurs - which were much more complex organisms - could have survived such long periods. However, as technology improves in the future, who knows?