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Amber – a fossil we can wear

Amber is a wonderful jewelry for gardeners and stewards of the Earth! It is that beautiful warm-looking golden-coloured almost-living jewelry.
amber

Amber is a wonderful jewelry for gardeners and stewards of the Earth! It is that beautiful warm-looking golden-coloured almost-living jewelry. It is actually ancient plant resin that has metamorphosed into a hard, plastic-like polymer during a process that took only a few million years. It is not formed from sap, but rather plant resin that can drip or ooze from the tree. Sap is the compound that circulates through the vascular system of plants while resin is a semi-solid organic substance that is secreted in pockets or cells in the surface cells of the plant.

The amber itself is lovely to wear but it is especially unique when there are some added elements. It is often the case that insects get trapped in the sticky sap and then are forever preserved in this amber transparent tomb! It can trap debris such as seeds, leaves, feathers and of course insects! Think back to the movie Jurassic Park, which was based on finding blood-sucking insects that had feasted on the dinosaurs of the day and then drowning in a pool of sticky resin!

So what kind of plant provides this sticky resin compound known as a terpene plant resin? These terpenoid parts of the resin evaporate and dissipate under the natural conditions in the forest and becomes fossilized compounds in the sediments and soils. It does take millions of years and involves a progressive oxidation and polymerization of the natural compounds to form what we call amber.

The very beautiful amber produced in the Dominican Republic, and depicted in the movie, comes from the fossilized resin of an extinct leguminous tree (Hymenaea protera), which is the ancient ancestor of the present day West Indian locust or guapinol (Hymenaea courbaril). This is a large canopy tree of the tropical rain forest area. Studies have been done to determine that the resin from this tree currently growing in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Columbia and Brazil shows distinct similarities to the ancient amber.

In Mexico and Central America, the copal, a honey-like pitch, is locally used for incense and varnish. However, the amber deposits of the Baltic region are closely related to the resins of the broad-leaf conifers of the Araucariaceae family. In fact, in New Zealand, there is a broad-leaf living araucariad forest that produces copious amounts of resin that once formed a thriving industry for durable varnishes and linoleum. Forests such as these likely flourished in the Baltic region 60 million years ago.

During most of the Mesozoic time period, it was gymnosperms or evergreens that dominated the land vegetation. It has been traced that some of the amber land plants were likely conifers during this period and include species like Norfolk Pine, Monkey Puzzle and Kauri Pine and perhaps some of the ancient cedars, cypresses and junipers.

More historical documents show that most neotropical amber was formed after the demise of the dinosaurs (sorry Jurassic Park). However, there are deposits of amber from Bornhom, in the eastern United States and even Alaska that date back to the Jurassic periods.

Regardless of when amber was actually deposited and began that long fossilization process, today we are graced with enjoying amber in jewelry. What a blessing!

— Hanbidge is a horticulturist with the Saskatoon School of Horticulture and can be reached at 306-931-GROW(4769); by email at growyourfuture@gmail.com or check out our website at www.saskhort..