Amber is fossilized resin or tree sap that forms over millions of years. It is often used for jewelry and can contain organic or inorganic inclusions, including insects, plants, and even rare finds like mammalian bones or feathers. Inclusions are relatively rare, with one found per 100 pieces of Dominican amber and per 1000 pieces of Baltic amber.
Amber is a golden substance formed from fossilized resin or tree sap. It is sometimes called a fossil resin, and the fossilization process is primarily one of polymerization, where the monomers in the resin form into longer, more stable polymer chains. It only forms when large amounts of sap are available and that sap becomes trapped beneath the earth, leading to pressure on time scales of millions of years. Semi-fossilized amber, intermediate between the resin and the amber stage, is called copal. Most of the pieces are 30 to 100 million years old and date back to the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
This material is often used as a jewelry gem, although it is not a mineral. One of the reasons amber is famous is its occasional inclusions, quirks in the resin that reveal some trapped organic or inorganic material. Organic inclusions are the most popular and can sell for millions of dollars to collectors. Organic inclusions are caused when an animal, usually an insect, gets stuck in the tree sap which dries up and becomes trapped in the amber forever.
Some animals that get trapped in amber include flies, ants, beetles, moths, spiders, centipedes, centipedes, termites, mayflies, lice, mites, midges, bees, wasps, scorpions, cockroaches, grasshoppers, damsels, butterflies, and fleas. Flies (order Diptera) are the most common inclusion, making up 54% of all finds. The non-insect finds include plants such as fir, cypress, juniper, pine, spruce, oak, beech, maple, chestnut, magnolia and cinnamon, palms, ferns and mosses.
Some of the rarest finds are inclusions that are neither plants nor insects: lizards, worms, spiders, frogs, crustaceans, fungi, mammalian bones, mammalian feathers and hair. Larger animals, such as most mammals, are too large to get trapped in tree resin, easily getting out even if they are momentarily stuck. Sometimes the resin comes into contact with water before it turns to amber and will become filled with marine crustacean inclusions. Altogether, about 1000 species of animals have been found in this way.
Amber inclusions are quite rare, but not incredibly so. In Dominican amber there is 1 inclusion every 100 pieces, in Baltic amber there are inclusions every 1000 pieces.
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