Hobbies And Interests
Baltic Amber
Approximately 90 percent of the world's amber comes from the Kaliningrad Oblast, an isolated area on the Baltic Sea near Lithuania controlled by Russia. The largest mine is in the city of Kaliningrad and much of this amber is exported to Russia for polishing and processing. Amber also occurs along the coasts of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. This region produces easily the oldest amber samples available to consumers, believed to have been formed in the Eocene epoch some 34 to 56 million years ago. Fossils within the amber that you can see with the naked eye are fairly rare in Baltic amber (though this amber is usually littered with microscopic organisms). Baltic amber is known to contain bubbles of varying sizes.
Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic amber can range greatly in age, dating as far back as the Oligocene Epoch about 30 million years ago. This age variation is most likely due to the continued presence of resin-producing trees on the island. A well-known source of Dominican amber is located in Cotui. Amber from this region is noted for its abundance of clearly visible encased insects as well as the rarer fossil inclusions like prehistoric plants and reptiles. Economic demand and the quest for older fossil resins have driven excavators deeper into Dominican hillsides.
Colombian Amber
Colombian amber is the amber most closely associated with quality fossil specimens such as lizards and large insects, with single small specimens entombing biological "snapshots" of the world, as it was millions of years ago. Similar in age to Dominican amber (ranging from about 2 million years to 20 million years) Colombian amber is not as commercially exploited as other regional ambers because of the difficulty in reaching the deposits and dangers associated with the countries high crime rate.