Ambre
It is a resin of tree hardened, consisted of sap, alcohols, which covers the bark. The trees produce this sap like protection against the diseases and the attack of insects. . After having exuded outside, the resin hardened in wet sediments, like clay and sand. It is at the bottoms of the lagoons or deltas of river that was preserved during millenia.
The chemical composition of the resin which acted like dessicant and antibiotic grabbed the animals like insects (i.e. mosquitos, flies, spiders, ants and its eggs and emergent larvae) but still of the lizards and frogs. They remained imprisoned in the resin, they were kept and preserved like fossil inclusions dehydrated. They were maintained in their cellular structure this is why we still can take fragments of ADN today
mosquito in Dominican amber.
Not only the insects and the small vertebrate ones are present in the pieces of ambers, but also of the plants like flowers, mushrooms, foam, sheets and seeds. Thus, that makes it possible to the scientists to rebuild a model of ecosystem of the last millenia.
In
The amber of the Dominican Republic originating in Hymenea, an extinct species of tropical trees with broad sheets of the family of the leguminous plants, of which the closer relative is still in the east of Africa, the Caribbean as well as the 'Central America and of the South. This nearest relative of this old species is called “caroubier”.
The caroubier Seeds of the caroubier
Although there are many places where amber is found, the largest quantities come from only twenty tanks around the world and mainly in Eastern Europe (Baltic), in
The amber of the
Impassioned ambers, scientists and collectors seek Dominican amber for the three exceptionally rare “treasures”, which are the scorpions, the lizards and the frogs. Probably only 30 to 40 scorpions, 10 to 20 lizards and 8 or 9 frogs was on a world level.
A Dominican amber part was discovered in 1997 and that one evaluated with more than 50.000 US$. Why? It contained a small frog, preserved in a splendid way. The presence of insects in Dominican amber is 10 times more important than in Baltic amber. Dominican amber is also on 90% more transparent.
Dominican blue amber Blue Amber
The natural amber parts have forms very varied since irregular until formed well like drops, stalactites or campaniform, with a gravity (or a unit weight) of 1.05-1.1.
Dominican amber tends to be presented in many colors, very brilliant, with a large variety of very beautiful tonalities. Some factors influenced the determination of the color of each stone. Some possible factors are: the type of producing tree of the resin; the composition of the resin, its time and of the conditions of fossilization; the presence of natural elements (organic and inorganic; various existing levels of temperature and pressure in the layers containing of amber.
Little amber mine is in the part South-Eastern, particularly around Bayaguana. The majority of Dominican ambers are in the part of the Septentrional Cordillera which is between
Ambar mine
District North: (localised in the Juan sections of Nina and Ranch Abrosio)
When it is compared with the amber of the district of the South, the amber of this district tends to being more fragile and breaking with heat. Exist three varieties out of amber which are of this district:
Amber sample of colors yellow, red, green .....
Blue amber is rarer than the two yellow varieties and the three varieties out of amber can be distinguished from/to each other by the odor (amber can be burned like the incense).
South District :
Mine
The amber of
Mines of the TOCA:
The amber of this part is varied, one can find there the best and the worst parts of amber, but in general it is rather hard, not too expensive and contains more insects and plants that amber of any other section. Amber red finds also here, even if red colouring is a surface oxidation whose roadbase can be polished, while letting appear the yellow amber. During the time of great production, have it will be able to find a maximum of
Mines of PALO QUEMADO:
The amber of this section, even if it contains very few insects and few plants, is regarded as the best amber of the country which is in general clean, little expensive, rather hard and almost not fragile. Have finds there small pieces corrugated with large varieties of colors which the red includes. The amber little extracted from this section contains fractures due to the use of the machete during the extraction (practical commune).
Mines of the south of the island.
Amber mines :
Amber can sometimes be observed in the fresh cuts of road or in the beds of the brooks, only since a few decades, the conditions weather and erosion destroyed the outcrops. The peasants find small quantities in the outcrops with the machetes, sometimes by digging a cave, but only in very few localities exist true mines.
The exploitation of the mines is very intense in Toca, which is localised on the coast north in top of massive a sandstone peak, covered by limonite, which continues on tens of kilometers along the Septentrional Cordillera. The tunnels of mine are almost with approximately
It is a work a work hard and harassing with L `paddle until fallen the night.
« Mystic » Amber
Amber is easy to cut and allures by its color and its glare. It has been used for 10.000 years before J-C in an at the same time decorative goal (to make figurines, pearls, jewels, amulets, seals and ornaments of weapons and clothing) and curative, the yellow amber was the object of an important trade in Antiquity. Pierre born of the water, hones which imprisons the life, with his inclusions of insects or of vegetable remains, hones which burns, stone which attracts after friction the light bodies, amber is an ambiguous matter which inspired various legends.
The therapeuthic virtues
Blue amber
The lithothérapie confers numerous therapeutic virtues on the amber: to activate the blood circulation, calm the fever and the infections, for the asthma and the respiratory tracts, give strengths and fight(dispute) the fatigue, against the stress and the depression, to act on the endocrine glands, against the irritations of the skin... To take advantage completely of benefactions of the amber, we advise you jewels realized completely has it
We offer a necklace of amber to the newborn children to strengthen them, to help them to sleep, to facilitate the shoot of teeth and to save(spare) him(her) the irritations of the skin.
Amber’s legend
The old ones explained the birth of amber by the history of Phaéton, the son of Photogravure. Phaéton obtained one day the permission to drive the tank of the Sun, but, in its awkwardness, it carried out its crew too much close to the Earth, which it thus condemned to a terrible dryness. To stop these disorders, Zeus launched its lightning on the tank and Phaéton fell into a river where it found death. The gods had pity of the inconsolable sorrow of its sours and changed them into tree. The tears of the girls were as many resin drops which became in amber.
This legend, and many other beliefs which allotted to amber magic and curative capacities, developed an active craft industry, still long-lived today in the jewellery. Thus, the Teutoniques knights held the monopoly of amber and diffused chains in all Christendom.
PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS :
Ø Color: Yellow, orange, red, chestnut, and gilded. In the
Ø Gloss: coniferous tree.
Ø Transparency: Transparency with translucent.
Ø Crystalline system: it is not applied, amber is amorphous
Ø Habitudes: Slate nodules or stones sandy and washable with the beach.
Ø Break: Conchoïdal.
Ø Hardness: 2+ Specific
Ø Gravity: 1.05 - 1.09, maximum 1.30 (extremely light, fleet in a salt solution of 10%)
Ø Other Characteristics: It can be flaring, in light UV it is fluorescent, one charges with static electricity.
Ø Chemistry: Roughly C10H16O. Acid succinic.
Ø Classify: Plant.
Ø Places: Baltic country: E. Prussia (
Ø applications: Decorative, an invaluable stone and a semi-precious stone, scientific investigations (i.e. paleontology, geology)
Ø the Origin of the name:
v of the English and the French of the average age: amber.
v of will ambra of medieval Latin,
v of gray amber, Arabic anbar
v the Greek name for amber is: an electron. Around 600 front J. - C., the Greeks observed that by rubbing an amber against a piece of leather, it would attract particles of straw .
During more than 2000 years this strange effect continued to be a mystery. But at the 17th century, Doctor Guillermo Gilbert inquired into the reactions of amber and the magnets. It was the first to register the “electric” word in information on the theory of magnetism.
Isn't it interesting to know that the words “an electricity” and “electronics” relate to this beautiful “semi-precious stone”?
