Amber Listserv / australian amber
Amber Oz
dalewicks at ledanet.com.au
Wed Sep 5 16:18:54 EDT 2007
hi andy,
thanks for your thoughts and ideas.
look forard to seeing some photos.
all the best dale
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Ng
To: Amber Oz
Cc: amber group
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 5:59 PM
Subject: Re: Amber Listserv / australian amber
Hi Dale,
To avoid confusion, I'm answering your mail in sequence to the questions/subjects in it.
Your photo titled op%20large%20peice.jpg resembles a few chunks that I have...translucent reddish-chocolate. One chunk even has rock matrix between layers. It's very cloudy today, so I'll wait for the sun before taking photos to show you. We have Agathis Borneensis trees here, so it may be that the stuff (yours and mine) originated from the same genus of trees. Agathis Australis also exists here, but that type was imported to be planted for pulp-wood.
I avidly look forward to the IRS signatures comparison. This is very interesting!
I've yet to find lignite (if memory serves me correctly, lignite is brown coal eh?) with my amber. Maybe that's because I don't often dig for the stuff. Landslides and sinkholes are where most of my pieces come from. Transparent deep reds occur here also. Depending on the thickness of the polished piece, it may appear cognac with red flashes, and yes they do have a very distinct blue-green fluorescence that appears instantly when exposed to UV, no long camera exposure times needed.
Dale, if the black-looking piece (actually a deep red coloration, so deep that it appears black) did not have any crust on when you found it, that piece has been tumbled by mother nature for you, indicating a long time in the sea, buffeted by currents and sanded by sand. I can yank out a few hundred kilos of similar pieces which I found inland, and all of them will have a layer of crust. Only broken parts of the pieces will be devoid of crust.
As I was driving back from the post office just now, my mind was deep in thought regarding our similar ambers, and I had a minor epiphany. Sometimes that's more dangerous than using a cellphone when driving. I got back unscathed and I'm sure that old lady will get over her fright, but that's another story. Dale, a human element may have led to resinites from here appearing on your shores.
Consider this scenario: Japanese and Taiwanese fishing trawler ships encroach into Malaysian waters (a common occurrence). They net their illegal catch and make a run to international waters. After offloading their illegal catch onto a factory ship and replenishing their supplies, they head for Aussie waters to do their dirty work again, and jettison the trash that was hauled up along with their catch in Malaysian waters. Said trash may include chunks of resinites, which are then nudged by currents onto your shores.
Andy
On 9/5/07, Amber Oz <dalewicks at ledanet.com.au> wrote:
Hi Andy ,
thanks for your mail.
Sorry no ideas on the amber producing tree however some think maybe from a Kauri of some sort. The Kauri Pine (Agathis ) is a different species to the ones found in New Zealand. Could be possible that the tree that produced the Borneo amber may have grown in Cape York?
Would be very interesting if the possible ''pods'' turned out to be the same! they do take an amazing polish.
Thats great John .F. has your amber signiture, as he has tested Aust amber in Poland also a few years ago, JOHN would it be possible to have these signitures compared for us?
I have a copy some where if you can not find the Aust. amber copy?
60 MYO is a great age for Tertiary amber, which is what the Aussi stuff may be, (Tertiary but how old ?)do you find Lignite with some of your amber?The majority of pieces I find are tansparent red , and have a blue or green florecene.
The black looking peice ( red) is in its natural form, I havent found any with a thick crust. The only crusty type pieces are more like Peders amber from Denmark and have a hard yellow coating. photo attached.
thanks for your mail.
kind regards Dale
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Ng
To: Amber Oz
Cc: amber group ; tamber12 at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 9:47 AM
Subject: Re: Amber Listserv / australian amber
Dale, your photo just gave me an instant headache. Seed pods...so that's what they were. Am afraid I've committed many of them to the garbage truck over the years. I thought they were just junk that wouldn't take a polish. If I come across any more, I'll be keeping them.
As for comparing Borneo amber to the stuff you found, I don't mind a swap, but judging from burn, scent and polish would be a tad inconclusive and arbitrary. If you'd ask John Fudala, mabye he could have IRS performed on your pieces? They already have my stuff's IRS signature in Poland, so comparing them would be a snap, and make for a much more conclusive comparison. I don't know what tree they came from; John mentioned that the signature matched that of the dipterocarpe family. Any ideas on the trees from whence your amber sprang from? Judging from looks alone, I'd say it came from that same family of trees.
I'm sending a few pieces to James Cornell over in the US for identification of the bugs within. One of those pieces contains at least 3 insects and was part of the first chunk of amber I found around the Danum valley earlier this year. That's a rainforest that's supposedly 60MYO. The coloration of that area's amber is different from the normal dark ones, more akin to a translucent yellow-orange. Maybe James can also lend his expertise to identifying the amber itself.
Dale, with reference to that black-looking piece on the left, was the crust removed or was it found like that? I've been given chunks of resinites hauled in by trawler boats before and while some had barnacles on them, most had one thing in common: a very thick crust (sometimes more than 1cm thick). That thick crust would definitely provide much protection against the rigors of a long ocean voyage.
Andy
On 9/5/07, Amber Oz <dalewicks at ledanet.com.au> wrote:
hi guys,
thanks for your interesting mail .
its true that the source is not yet discovered and flow currents do pass down that way the amber is found.
The similarity to Borneo amber is interesting also, the looks are simular, the aussie amber isn't rounded and or weathered from ocean travel,
Another strange occurrence is the amber pods (seeds that are totally amberised) which I havent seen in other ambers and not yet explained by scientists (here in Aust) attaching photo.
If anyone has seen this in amber could you please send info?
There has been IRS test done also. and not yet matching.
Progress is slow but have just been up north with scientests and results will start to come in let you know when this happens.
If interested Andy, would you like to swap apiece of Borneo for an Aust peice of amber, we could do some tests to see if it may be the the same or simular? ie burn ,smell , polish? could be interesting.
Andy do you know which tree produced the Borneo amber?
all the best Dale
---- Original Message -----
From: tamber12 at aol.com
To: andy.ng.aik.hoe at gmail.com
Cc: dalewicks at ledanet.com.au ; amber at ambericawest.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 5:07 AM
Subject: Re: Amber Listserv / australian amber
Andy, the amber Dale Wicks has found has been labeled "Wickite", but as yet we don't have a proven Aussie source. It's hypothesized that there is one, it's just that they are only now getting to the point of looking for it actively. Dale has been a busy amber hunter and spent much time in the bush lately. He will have much to tell soon, I hope. If it is found that Australia has a natural amber source, he's the guy that made it happen. As it is, he's the reason we have all this Aussie amber to talk about anyway and I think it's all very exciting, however it got there. Just think, out on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef, coasting up into the river valleys and getting out on a beach to dig around and look for amber. Dodging crocodiles and other critters is your only danger. I think I could deal with that.
Tammi
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Ng <andy.ng.aik.hoe at gmail.com>
To: tamber12 at aol.com <tamber12 at aol.com>
Cc: dalewicks at ledanet.com.au; amber at ambericawest.com
Sent: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 12:51 pm
Subject: Re: Amber Listserv / australian amber
Tammi, thank you for a very logical hypothesis (re: ocean currents washing resinites from the Indonesian islands down to Oz). It may well be the case, and bears further investigation.
Another possibility exists: that such resinites were produced locally over there by indigenous dipterocarpe trees. Darwin is rather similar in climate and vegetation to my neck of the woods. Maybe millennia ago, there were rainforest trees there pumping out resins as well.
BTW, if my foggy memory didn't fail me, I recall that Aussie amber had already been proven to exist and is named Wickite? It's only logical to assume that any place that supported vegetation in the past would have very high chances of having resins being exuded by injured trees, and said resins turning to amber over the course of time. Indeed, I'd be very surprised if any place that had supported vegetation in the past was devoid of amber.
Andy
On 9/4/07, tamber12 at aol.com < tamber12 at aol.com> wrote:
Andy, I've looked into that some and I'm more inclined to believe it has to do with ocean currents washing the resins onto the Aussie shores. New Zealand has similar resin finds on the most southern tip, and no natural deposits but if you look at the flow of current coming from the direction of the Indonesian land mass, the current is such that buoyant materials could be transported in that direction. Just my thinking on the case. Either way, there is such a variety of neat stuff coming from Dale's finds that I keep hoping they will discover natural deposits there. I believe some of the strata in Cape York is old enough to support it, and that in time it will be proven.
Dale, thanks for sharing and for giving us something new to talk about!
Tammi
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Ng <andy.ng.aik.hoe at gmail.com>
To: Amber Oz < dalewicks at ledanet.com.au>
Cc: amber group <amber at ambericawest.com>
Sent: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 1:19 am
Subject: Re: Amber Listserv / australian amber
Nice one Dale. I'm again struck by the remarkable similarity between Borneo and Aussie amber. Does anyone know if these 2 places used to be a single landmass with common flora?
Andy
On 9/3/07, Amber Oz <dalewicks at ledanet.com.au > wrote:
hi,
hope all are good.
l have been collecting australian amber for the past month and have found some nice pieces, attaching a photo of a couple.
also an interesting deposit of lignite that has been dated as miocene in age.as yet no assosiation ith the aust. amber.
all the best dale
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