subject: The Items Found In Pieces Of Amber Are A Window On The Past [print this page] Because pieces frequently hold fossilised remains that can be analysed to provide evidence of the development of animal, insect and plant life over the ages Amber has been extremely useful to scientists, researchers and historians.
George O. Poinar, Jr., a writer and entomologist educated at Cornell University is known for popularizing the idea of extracting DNA from insects fossilized in amber, and went on to research at University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Entomology, Division of Insect Pathology.
It has been found that a small segment of an entire ecosystem, since plants, animals, bacteria, archeans, fungi, etc., can all be simultaneously sealed within the hardened resin that is amber.
Amber is produced from a specific genus of tree, Pinus Succinifera, which produces an unnaturally large secretion of resin.
The inclusions that are most often found in amber, particularly Baltic amber, are examples of the Diptera Family, or true flies. They are often Mycetophilidea, also known as fungus gnats and would have have lived on the fungus growing on the rotting vegetation of the amber forest.
Sometimes a small lizard will be found, trapped and encased in amber, particularly from the Dominican Republic deposits. There is one famous specimen that holds a 25,000,000 year old gecko. Another specimen also from the Dominican Republic was found to contain the remains of a frog. Small pieces of hair found in amber have been identified as coming from sloths and moles.
DNA and other analysis of these inclusions can provide valuable insights into the ecology of a particular historic era and sometimes even change previous theories as in the case of the remains of a mouse found in amber from the Dominican Republic that led to the standing theory of the population of the West Indian islands by land animals being completely rewritten.
Scientists also warn, however, that many species are not included in amber finds and this needs to be remembered when trying to create a picture of a particular era. Some animals or insects would have been too large or too fast-moving to have been trapped in amber when it was forming.
Much of the amber mined nowadays is used to make jewellery and it is possible to find pieces containing insects or fragments of leaves and plants made into an amber pendant.
It is a matter of personal taste whether a person finds the beautiful, clear, gold of amber attractive with or without an inclusion or whether the gemstone fashioned into an insect shape in amber pendants is something they would like to wear.
