Amber and Copal

A few months ago I went crazy on Abebooks, a wonderful used book website, and bought a ton of fossil books. They are stacked on my desk at work and in the back seat of my car. I was looking for some lunch reading this week and cracked open one on Amber. So informative!

I had no idea that amber is not found where the trees dropped resin. It has been secondarily processed, most likely eroded out of the soil and then washed down a stream or river and then deposited in sediments. Unfossilized amber is called copal. It can also have inclusions of insects and is sometimes sold as amber. One simple test is that a drop of alcohol on it will make it sticky upon evaporating. Several years ago I bought what I thought was amber at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show but after Brian and I did the alcohol test it became sticky. It wasn't amber after all, it was copal.

I learned that it is fairly common to fake amber. Sometimes people with cut open amber, hollow out one side, drop in a bug, and then sell it as amber. The big money of course is for specimens with large trapped critters. These larger critters were usually strong enough to escape. So there are lots of fakes out there with scorpions or lizards in them.

In addition, phenolic resins, caseins,  and glass can all be made to look like amber. After reading the book I had an idea that this would make a great science lab. There are some simple tests you can perform (like the alcohol) to check the authenticity of the amber. The other night I went on eBay to see if I could find some amber plus some of the other materials for the lab. I became so skeptical I became discouraged. I think I will have to find a more trustworthy source than eBay for buying amber.