Amber Listserv / copal

[JOHN FUDALA]

If I may, gentelmen...

Glen, what makes you say that the pieces you call copal because they are
affected by acetone are not of the same age as "true" Mexican amber?
The inclusions in them might be of the same age as the rest of the resin
pieces. It might be that these pieces were in a different enviroment that
affected their rate of maturing. It might be resin from different plant
growing among all the other plants making up most of the bulk of Mexican
amber.
Andy's "amber" and "copal" are totally different bunches of chemicals that
share just one common characteristic- some are and some are not affected by
acetone.

Everyone would do a lot better paying attention to the fact that the name
copal is associated with deposits of a uniform resin from Colombia or
Madagascar for example. Or Cotui in DR.
You do not find a mix of "amber" and "copal" there- it is all copal.

And just because in Mexico or Baltics you do happen to find pieces that are
different that the bulk of resin, this does not make it automatically
"copal". It most probabely is some kind of resin that occured alongside of
the main product. It should be studied and named accordingly, as most likely
it is not "just" copal.

John

On 7/12/06, glen <gosborne at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>  andy, I do run across some copal in Mexico but I do have a test that
> works for that deposit. I do not buy amber from other deposits so I never
> really think about it. of course all things have their own beauty and
> appeal. I sell amber on my website and for this reason I am always
> interested in debate about copal versus amber. are inclusions in copal
> fossils? but then are all inclusions in amber fossils, that is with some
> resins that are very young, are the inclusions truely fossils. the
> definition for a fossil in websters dictionary is : a remnant, impression or
> trace of an animal or plant of past geological ages. at 22 to 26 million
> years old I believe that amber from Mexico fits this description. I believe
> that no inclusions in copal fall into this catagory. what is your opinion?
> glen
>
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