Amber chemistry

The most prolific amber collecting area is around the Samland Peninsula, extending into the Baltic Sea.

This 400 square mile peninsula is the surface expression of an ancient forest which extended across the Baltic Sea area.

The amber is from a formation, called "Blue Earth", which lies below the sea surface. Or the formation can be reached by mining.

While the formation is called Blue Earth, it is actually a greenish color, due to the inclusion of glauconite. Glauconite is a geological marker clay which is unique to saline marine environments, always forming under anaerobic conditions (without oxygen).

The ancient chemistry of amber is not well understood. How an inclusion can remain relatively unaffected over millions of years, without decay distorting the animal remains is still a mystery. Part of the answer is thought to involve compounds called terpenes, which dehydrate the inclusions, and hence stop the natural process of decay. Tree resin should not be confused with tree sap; not all trees exude resin. Amber is the fossilized resin of coniferous and angiospermous trees.

Baltic amber has succinic acid, which can be traced to a species of tree, which is not widespread. Amber is essentially a form of hydrocarbon, as is the tree itself. The chemical bonding is changed over time due to temperature and pressure.

Under analysis, amber does not follow more than general rules. Even within the same fragment there are found variations in concentration of a variety of hydrocarbon compounds. Consequently numerous chemical formulas have been attributed to it:

C10H16O - 13C40H64O14 - 12C12H20O.

The reason for this wide variation is simply because amber is not a true mineral, it is an organic plastic with variable mixtures, and consequently no precise quantification can be made with any exactitude.

Some aspects of amber are fairly consistent. The properties of amber are as follows:

• Hardness: 2.0 - 2.5 Mohs Scale.

Specific Gravity: 1.050 - 1.096
Refraction Index: 1.54
Melting point: 500/720° F (150/380° C)