Re: Amber

[Neil Clark <nclark@museum.gla.ac.uk>]

Dear all,

William reported the following:-

> Mercury NEWSpot reports:
> 
> Amber found in the mountains of Lebanon has been confirmed as the
> oldest in the world, dating back 125 million years, and insects
> trapped in it could lead to new scientific advances, a Lebanese
> scientist said Monday.

I hate to disappoint the Lebanese scientist, but there is amber much 
older than 125Ma.  An example of this is the Westphalian 
(Carboniferous) amber from Scotland which has inclusions of plants 
(no insects that I am aware of).  I am trying to rediscover the 
horizon from which these samples came from and also to find where the 
samples were kept after their descrition in the late 1800's.  If 
anyone is desparate for more details, I can provide references on 
this.  I may even put up a web page to show the inclusions.

Neil

[You might want to contact the guy directly.  If you looked at the
 entire news article, you'd see that it referred to 25 million year
 old amber as being Jurassic in age.  I think the article came through
 Reuters, and I've found them to be terribly unreliable...  I wouldn't
 be surprised if they screwed up either his date or his claim. -- MR ]


Dr Neil Clark
Curator of Palaeontology
Hunterian Museum
University of Glasgow
GLASGOW
Scotland
G12 8QQ
Scotland/UK
email: NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk
Museum web site:-  http://www.gla.ac.uk/Museum/
Personal web site:- http://www.gla.ac.uk/~gxha14/

'Man must surely have become an immensely worse animal 
than his teeth show him to have been designed for'
Hugh Miller (Cruise of the Betsey - 1858)