Amber is hard, brittle fossil resin, mostly from coniferous trees (fig. 1). It is usually yellow to brown and is translucent or transparent. Amber is an organic gemstone and has been used as jewellery since early man first occupied Europe (fig. 2).1
Upon rubbing amber, it becomes electrically charged and attracts other objects. Because of this, the Greek word for amber (elektron) became the root for words such as electricity and electron. Amber burns with a fragrant incense when ignited. Thus the German word for amber, Bernstein, and the Dutch barnsteen, from ‘burning stone’. The English word comes from Arabic anbar.
Amber relatively common
Amber is found at hundreds of sites worldwide. Baltic amber is probably the best known.2 The main source of Baltic amber is a thin layer of sedimentary rock on a Swedish peninsula in the Baltic Sea, some 40 km (25 miles) long and discovered in the 1800s. Of the total amber from this deposit, 90% was mined directly from it. The remaining 10% was eroded by storms and then transported elsewhere (by glaciers, or by water—amber floats). It has been found in Poland, Russia, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Denmark, Great Britain, and Holland.
The amount of amber mined from the deposit so far is a staggering half a million kilograms (over one million pounds). How was so much amber deposited in one relatively small area?
What trees produce it?
Based on chemical signatures, scientists think Baltic amber originated from the resin of the Kauri pine (genus Agathis, fig. 3). This pine is from the Southern Hemisphere, but has an extensive fossil record in both hemispheres. (In New Zealand (NZ), the resin is called Kauri gum, which had many uses, such as jewellery, varnish, and fire-starters. Almost half a million tons were exported from NZ’s largest city, Auckland, from 1850–1950.)
It was once thought that amber came exclusively from this tree type. But, although the majority of it did come from Kauri pines, it’s now known that amber has also come from the resin of at least three other families of evergreen conifers, and twelve families of flowering trees (angiosperms).3
In one case, the chemistry of the amber would have indicated that it was from an angiosperm—except that it was discovered in Carboniferous layers. Since in the secular system this would put angiosperms 200 million years too early in the fossil record, it was assigned to an unknown type of extinct ‘strange’ plant which happened to have the ‘signature’ of angiosperm resin.4
Insects and other organisms in amber
Almost as intriguing as amber itself is the myriad and variety of small creatures, especially insects, preserved in amber. Insects are often well preserved, sometimes with extended wings, legs, and antennae (fig. 4). Specimens quicky dry out in the resin, almost always preserving their chitin exterior. The details of soft tissue organs are sometimes also preserved, occasionally exquisitely—sometimes even the soft tissues themselves. Many other types of organisms are also found in amber,2 including spiders, bacteria, fungi, algae, slime moulds, mosses, liverworts, parts of ferns, conifers, and flowering plants, protozoa, nematodes, rotifers, mollusks, worms, flowers, feathers, mushrooms, scorpions, small lizards, frogs, a crab, a mole cricket that burrows into the ground, and the bones of a small mammal.
Mammal hairs have also been found in Cretaceous amber from the ‘age of the dinosaurs’.5 It was even claimed that bacteria from the abdominal contents of an extinct bee preserved in Dominican amber were revived.6 Just recently a small ammonite fossil was found in amber.
One of the more interesting fossils found in amber is a tiny gecko foot with modern-looking toe pads that was discovered in an amber mine in Myanmar.7 A well-preserved whole gecko has been found in Baltic amber. The unique toe pads show little or no change from geckos that live today.
Many aquatic organisms are found in amber:
To find aquatic organisms in tree resin may seem to be highly unlikely, but the fossil record provides numerous amber-preserved limnetic arthropods (e.g., water beetles, water striders, and crustaceans) and microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, algae, ciliates, testate amoebae, and rotifers).8
Larvae of mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies, which never leave the water, are also found in amber.3 These observations are difficult to explain from a uniformitarian perspective and usually result in some type of hypothesis that has resin dropping from trees into freshwater bodies. This does happen on a small scale, such as in the swamps of Florida.8 But it doesn’t explain the fact that amber is always found in marine sedimentary rocks:
All known amber-bearing beds are or have been associated with marine deposits, indicating an inundation with salt water at some time in their past.2
Ocean creatures in amber
Further, some of the organisms found in amber are marine types. Girard et al. were surprised:
The presence of marine organisms in tree resin, however, seemed highly unlikely … .9
Poiner noted the curious presence of a certain water strider in Baltic amber whose modern representatives
… normally live on the surface of the ocean, often far from land.2
More recently, a marine crustacean was found in amber at more than one location.10 Diverse marine diatoms, radiolarians, sponge spicules, bits of coral, foraminifera, and a spine from a larval echinoderm have all been documented in the amber from southwest France.11
Origin of amber unknown
Given the unique features of amber, it is not surprising that uniformitarian scientists cannot explain its origin.2,12 Martinez-Declòs et al. ask:
Amber is commonly found within coal or closely associated with it, mainly the low-rank coal called lignite or brown coal.3 This suggests that the resin requires some amount of heat and pressure to transform it to amber.2 Martinez-Declòs et al. stated:
The major processes that affect amber-bearing deposits during diagenesis are overburden pressure and elevated temperature.5
Therefore, the origin of amber is likely similar to that of coal. Coal’s origin is also poorly understood by secularists. But Flood log mats can explain both.13
Flood log mats explain amber mysteries
Thick and widespread log mats floating on the waters of Noah’s Flood can explain the origin of amber, how it is found, and the creatures in it. Resin bleeds from trees because of trauma or damage,1 which would be expected in the Flood as logs were ripped up in huge numbers and bounced around in the turbulent water. Numerous organisms attempting to survive the Flood would find refuge on log mats. The organisms would sometimes become trapped in this copious flow of resin (fig. 5). Further turbulence would cause organisms and resin to dislodge from the log mat, sink, and be deposited with the marine sediments (fig. 6). Further burial and the heat resulting from the pressure of the overlying sediments would transform the resin into amber.
References and Notes
Lambert, J.B. and Poinar, Jr., G.O., Amber: the organic gemstone, Accounts of Chemical Research 35(8):628–636, 2002.
Poinar, Jr., G.O., Life in Amber, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, pp. 16–29, 1992.
Martinez-Declòs, X. and 2 others, Taphonomy of insects in carbonates and amber, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 203:19–64, 2004.
Grimaldi, D., Pushing back amber production, Science 326(5949):51–52, 2009.
Doyle, S., ‘Remarkable’ mammal hairs found in amber? creation.com/mammal-hair-in-amber, 2010. Science 268:1060–1064, 1995.
Cano, R.J. and Borucki, M.K., Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25- to 40-million-year-old Dominican amber, Science 268:1060–1064, 1995.
Arnold, E.N. and Poinar, G., A 100 million year old gecko with sophisticated adhesive toe pads, preserved in amber from Myanmar, Zootaxa 1847:62–68, 2008.
Schmidt, A.R. and Dilcher, D.L., Aquatic organisms as amber inclusions and examples from a modern swamp forest, PNAS 104(42):16581, 2007.
Girard, V. and 8 others, Evidence for marine microfossils from amber, PNAS 105(45):17426, 2008.
Vonk, R. and Schram, F.R., Three new tanaid species (crustacea, peracarida, tanaidacea) from the lower Cretaceous Álava amber in northern Spain, J. Paleontology 81(6):1508, 2007.
Girard, V. and 7 others, Exceptional preservation of marine diatoms in upper Albian amber, Geology 37(1):83–86, 2009.
McKellar, R.C. and 3 others, Correlation of Grassy Lake and Cedar Lake ambers using infrared spectroscopy, stable isotopes, and palaeoentomology, Canadian J. Earth Sciences 45:1061–1082, 2008.
Oard, M.J. (ebook), The Genesis Flood and Floating Log Mats: Solving Geological Riddles, Creation Book Publishers, 2014; creation.com/s/35-5-514.