Origins of Baltic Amber

The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber, with about 80% of the world's known amber found there. It dates from between 35 to 40 million years ago (Eocene Early Oligocene). It has been estimated that these forests created over 105 tons of amber.

The term Baltic amber is generic, so amber from the Bitterfeld mines in Germany (which is only 20 million years old) goes under the same name.

Classification of Baltic amber (succinite) gemstones by the International Amber Association

• Natural Baltic amber – gemstone which has undergone mechanical treatment only (for instance: grinding, cutting, turning or polishing) without any change to its natural properties

• Modified Baltic amber – gemstone subjected only to thermal or high-pressure treatment, which changed its physical properties, including the degree of transparency and color, or shaped under similar conditions out of one nugget, previously cut to the required size.

• Reconstructed (pressed) Baltic amber – gemstone made of Baltic amber pieces pressed in high temperature and under high pressure without additional components.

• Bonded Baltic amber – gemstone consisting of two or more parts of natural, modified or reconstructed Baltic amber bonded together with the use of the smallest possible amount of a colorless binding agent necessary to join the pieces.

Because Baltic amber contains about 8% succinic acid, it is also termed succinite. It was thought since the 1850s that the resin that became amber was produced by the tree Pinites succinifer, but research in the 1980's came to the conclusion that the resin originates from several species. More recently it has been proposed, on the evidence of Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of amber and resin from living trees, that conifers of the family Sciadopityaceae were responsible. The only extant representative of this family is the Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata.

A number of extinct organisms have been found and named from specimens in the amber including Fibla carpenteri.
The amber nuggets extracted in the mines of Sambia or found on the Baltic beaches are the fossilised resin of coniferous trees with its species yet to be determined conclusively. In the 19 th century, this species was denoted collectively as amber-bearing pine, Pinus succinifera , which was confirmed by Kurt Schubert in 1961. These pines grew over 45 million years ago (in the Eocene) in the mixed forests of the continent called Fennoscandia.