Amber

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Amber, also called Allingite or Burmite (if from Burma/Myanmar), is the common name for fossil resin that is appreciated for its inherent and interesting mixture of colours and it is widely used for the manufacture of ornamental objects.

Although not mineralized, it is sometimes considered and used as a gemstone. Neopagans often use the stone for healing. This stone was called Freya's tears by the ancient Norse. Most of the world's amber is in the range of 30–90 million years old. Semi-fossilized resin or sub-fossil amber is called copal.

Amber consists of several resinous bodies more or less soluble in alcohol, ether and chloroform, associated with an insoluble bituminous substance.

1 Amber in geology
2 Amber inclusions
3 Locations and utilization
4 See also
5 References
6 Other websites

[change] Amber in geology

Baltic amber (historically documented as Prussian amber) is found as irregular nodules in a marine sand, known as blue earth, in the Lower Oligocene strata of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast, where it is now systematically mined.^[1]

[change] Amber inclusions

At least 2 insects trapped in amber.

The resin can contain, in addition to the beautifully preserved plant-structures, remains of insects, spiders, annelids, frogs^[2], crustaceans and other small organisms which became enveloped while the it was fluid. In most cases the organic structure has disappeared, leaving only a cavity, with perhaps a trace of chitin.

[change] Locations and utilization

Wood resin, the ancient source of amber

Although amber is found along the shores of a large part of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, the great amber-producing country is the promontory of Sambia, now part of Russia. About 90% of the world's extractable amber is located in the Kaliningrad region of Russia on the Baltic Sea.^[3] Amber is extensively used for beads and other ornaments, and for cigar-holders and the mouth-pieces of pipes.

Cloudy unpolished amber, artificially illuminated

When gradually heated in an oil-bath, amber becomes soft and flexible. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing the surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing them together while hot. Cloudy amber may be clarified in an oil-bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores to which the turbidity is due. Small fragments, formerly thrown away or used only for varnish, are now utilized on a large scale in the formation of "ambroid" or "pressed amber". The pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then compressed into a uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure; the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal plate. The product is extensively used for the production of cheap jewelery and articles for smoking.

Amber was much valued as an ornamental material in very early times.