Amber Listserv / copal

[Andy Ng]

Glen, what's your definition of 'past geological ages'? Would the Pliocene
qualify as one of those ages? Some classify a resin to be a copal when it's
20my old or younger. If so, there's plenty of fossils in copal that is 1my
or older. And when they talk of the age of a resin, it can either be
RELATIVE age or ABSOLUTE age. How the relative age is determined is
determined by the cuscumstances which that particular piece was discovered,
or by the inclusions within.

This layman would not give much credence to the reportedly young age of a
resin that was determined soley by observing the insect inclusions within. A
simple reason for that: the insect may have become trapped in the sticky
center of a piece of amber (amber outside, copal inside) that broke to
expose said sticky center. The resin may have been close to 20my old, and
the insect much younger than that, and determining the age of the resin by
observing the insect would be errenous. If more learned members of the
listserv think it wrong, please correct me.

I find the terms 'fossil amber' and 'copal' often used in the same sentence.
And I wonder if the term 'fossil copal' is not used in deference to the
blueish partly-mineralized copal found in England that is named 'fossil
copal', or is it mainly due to sheer amber-bigotry? This amber-bigotry I
speak of runs along the lines of calling succinites 'True Amber', which, if
absorbed and accepted by one's mind, would lead to the logical conclusion
that all other kinds of amber are 'False Ambers', and hence are inferior to
the 'True' stuff. It smacks of snobbishness, elitism, and is a darned good
marketing ploy! BTW, not all Baltic amber contains succinic acid.

The subliminal inference caused by 'fossil amber' versus normal ho-hum
'copal' would IMHO make many people assume that copal is devoid of fossils,
because it just ain't 'FOSSIL amber'. Hardly fair, and people who accept
that as is should also consider a membership in the Flat Earth Society.

To those of you who managed to read my ramblings this far without falling
asleep: psst your fly is open! :-P

Andy

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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