B A L T I C    A M B E R

Baltic amber was produced by a tree called 'pinites succinifer', a tree sharing many characteristics similar to a pine or spruce tree of today. The resin may have originally been a defensive mechanism against insect infestation or fungal attack used by the trees. Once released the resin goes through a number of stages in order to become amber. The first stage involves the slow evaporation of volatile oils called turpenes and could take anywhere from a 100 to a 1000 years to fully dissipate. Once completed the resin would become harder and would then be called copal. This second stage may take millions of years before the process turns the copal into something approaching the structure of what is amber.

Baltic amber (a mere 40 millions years old) can be found in quite large blocks, in some cases weighing several kilos. The quantities of the of resin which must have been generated in the Baltic deposits was huge, which can be confirmed by the amount of amber that has been extracted from various Baltic mines. Amber from the Samland Peninsula in the Baltic is actually a secondary deposit, the original amber forest being located down further south. The resin was carried northward by two great rivers from its original site and deposited in a great drift of silt and clay. This deposit site extends out under the sea and stopped short of the East Anglia coast.

The most frequent inclusions to be found in Baltic amber include species of the Diptera Family, or true flies. Quite often these are Mycetophilidea species, often referred to as fungus gnats. These tiny little flies would have lived on the fungus growing on the rotting vegetation of the amber forest of which there was enough to support an enormous insect population.