Amber what is it

His mother and sister turned into trees in their grief but still mourned him. Their tears, dried by the sun, are amber. The Greeks called amber 'elektron', sun-made, perhaps because of this story, or perhaps because it becomes electrically charged when rubbed with a cloth and can attract small particles. Homer mentions amber jewellery - earrings and a necklace of amber beads - as a princely gift in the Odyssey. Another ancient writer, Nicias, said that amber was the juice or essence of the setting sun congealed in the sea and cast up on the shore.

The Romans sent armies to conquer and control amber-producing areas. The Emperor Nero was a great connoisseur of amber. During his time, according to the Roman historian Pliny, the price of an amber figurine, no matter how small, exceeded the price of a healthy slave. The ancient Germans burned amber as incense, so they called it 'bernstein', or 'burn stone'. Clear colourless amber was considered the best material for rosary beads in the Middle Ages on account of its smooth silky feel.

Certain orders of knights controlled the trade, and unauthorised possession of raw amber was illegal in most of Europe by the year So could a mosquito trapped in amber really contain dinosaur DNA?

Most amber just isn't old enough, having had some 25 to 50 million birthdays at the most. The dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period. It seals and sterilizes the injury. More often than not, it gets weathered away. First of all the resin needs to be chemically stable and not degrade over time. It has to be resistant to sun, rain, extreme temperatures, and microorganisms like bacteria and fungi. There are two types of resin produced by plants that can fossilize.

Terpenoids are produced by gymnosperms conifers and angiosperms. They are composed of ring structures made from isoprene C5H8 units. Phenolic resins are only produced by Angiosperms. An extinct type of trees called medullosans produced another unique type of resin. The next factor is that the resin needs to be in the right conditions to fossilize. Young amber could be transported in seawater it floats , and then buried under sediment to fossilize. In the Baltics, glaciers knocked down many trees and buried them, allowing them to fossilize.

Intense pressure and temperatures cause the resin to become a solid orange gem. First molecular polymerization forms copal young amber and then the heat and pressure drive out terpenes and complete the amber transformation. The oldest amber discovered is from the Upper Carboniferous, millions of years ago. What Is A Fossil. Fossil Collecting. How Are Fossils Formed. Clock of Eras. Geologic Time Line. Earth Science Lesson Plans. Activities For Kids. Fossil Lesson Plans.

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Oxford, See A. Bibliography Anderson and Crelling Anderson, K. Beck and Bouzek Beck, C. Beck and Shennan Beck, C.