• Question: What tree is amber formed in? Also, is it different to other saps?

    Asked by konekoraian to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Good question! Amber is fossilized tree resin, where the resin is rendered hard like rock through high pressure and temperatures under the ground. Many different trees produce this resin… It is produced in the woody part of the tree.

      And yes tree resin is different than sap!

      It appears that pine trees and other conifers are a good source of amber!!

      Most fundamentally, there are two types of plant resin with the potential for fossilization. Terpenoids, produced by conifers and angiosperms, consist of ring structures formed of isoprene (C5H8) units.[2] Phenolic resins are today only produced by angiosperms, and tend to serve functional uses. The extinct medullosans produced a third type of resin, which is often found as amber within their veins.[2] The composition of resins is highly variable; each species produces a unique blend of chemicals. The overall chemical and structural composition is used to divide ambers into five classes.[21][22] There is also a separate classifications of amber gemstones, according to the way of production.

    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      You know, amber washes up on the beach of Robin Hood’s Bay, it’s beautiful – you should visit and try and find some! If you tried making fresh amber now, you’d have to wait at least one and a half million years for the final product!

      Amber comes from the fossilised sap of lots of different trees and is generally over 1.6 million years old – some of the trees that made amber we find now are long gone and extinct. you can find out about different ages of amber here ::

      http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/amber/varieties.html

      In order to make amber the sap of the tree must have the ability to ‘polymerise’ or ‘go hard and set’ a bit like making plastic – all the free flowing chemicals join together in strings to make a solid. Not all trees produce the kind of chemicals naturally able to do this on their own. The reason pines and conifers were good at making amber is because of the high concentration of this sort of chemical their sap contained.

    • Photo: Ashley Cadby

      Ashley Cadby answered on 6 Jul 2012:

      I think Paige and SJ have done a better job of answering this question than I old do.

Comments