Amber
COLOR RANGE
Light yellow to dark brown, orange, red, white, occasionally greenish, bluish due to fluorescence
HARDNESS & TOUGHNESS
Hardness : 2-2.5 Toughness: Poor
MAJOR SOURCES
Dominican Republic (major source) Germany, Mexico, Poland, Russia
Amber belongs to the category of organic gems, the products of living organisms and biological processes. Ambers formed millions of years ago, when sap from ancient trees hardened and fossilized.
Stone Age people discovered these golden jewels along the shore of the Baltic Sea, and they became perhaps the earliest and most consistently popular ornamental gems. Scientists and collectors treasure amber that contains suspended animal or plant fragment: fossilized bits of once living things that were trapped in the hardening amber millions of years ago, creating a fascinating time capsule. Scientists are interested in amber because of the remains of flora & fauna which give the possibility to study behavior of some species, the relationships between them.
Unlike other fossils, which were usually com- pressed by sediment, amber with inclusions is transparent on all sides. Some types of amber are found in the ground. Other types have been freed and carried by tides and end up on beaches or near – shore areas. The Baltic coast bordering Germany, Poland, and Russia is still a source of amber, which is sometimes called “gold of north.”
