Melting of amber. Amber: learning to distinguish natural

Amber varies in shape, color and degree of transparency. The shape of a piece of amber was determined by where the resin came from. This occurred either inside or on the surface of the damaged tree trunk. When the discharge was abundant, the resin flowed down in the form of drops, icicles, and streaks. In the collection of the Kaliningrad Amber Museum, the largest drop has a diameter of slightly more than 5 cm. But much larger ones are also known - the size of goose egg. The length of the deposits in the form of icicles is 10-12 cm. Small lens-shaped and crescent-shaped pebbles were apparently born in “resin pockets” that formed in the cavities between the growth rings of trees. Traces of wood tissue are often visible on the ambers frozen here. The location of the resin between the trunk and the bark led to the formation of subcortical forms. The texture of wood or bark is clearly visible on them. The pieces that arise in large subcortical cavities reach a weight of two kilograms. Even larger specimens of amber were born where there was a large open wound on the tree trunk. The resin expired for a long time and accumulated in the ground. The largest known sample of succinite is kept in Berlin and weighs 9 kg 750 g. The Russian giant from the collection of the Kaliningrad Museum is significantly smaller - 4 kg 280 g. The intensity of color, the degree of transparency or opacity of the gem largely depend on the microscopic voids that exist in each stone, on their quantity, size and placement.

The following types of amber are distinguished:

transparent, in which there are single voids:

translucent, or translucent, in which there are large accumulations of voids leading to cloudiness (cloudy, bastard):

opaque(bone and foam), in which the number of voids can reach 900,000 per 1 cubic meter. mm..:

Nature has endowed amber with an incredible wealth of colors. There are bright yellow and reddish ones, reminiscent of a flame, and “honey” stones. There are “cloudy” ones - they seem to be clouded by cirrus clouds. There are amazingly beautiful ambers of blue and greenish shades. (2)

Chemical composition of amber

Amber is a high-molecular compound of organic acids containing on average 79% carbon, 10.5% hydrogen, 10.5% oxygen. Its formula is C10 H16 O4. 100 g of amber contains 81 g of carbon, 7.3 g of hydrogen, 6.34 g of oxygen, some sulfur, nitrogen and minerals. Quantitative relationships between individual elements in amber are subject to fluctuations. They are inconsistent not only for amber from one deposit or manifestation, but even for amber from one piece. The variability of composition does not allow amber to be classified as a mineral. The term “amber” should be considered collective for a number of fossil resins. A typical representative of this series is succinite. High-quality amber is usually identified with it. After burning amber, ash remains. The ash content of Baltic succinite is small - 0.2%, bastard and bone - 0.8%. The ash content of Ukrainian (Klesovsky) Yantar reaches 8.7%. A significant amount of ash in amber indicates a noticeable content of mechanical impurities of mineral substances. During the weathering process, amber becomes more oxygenated, and the content of other components decreases. 24 chemical elements (Y, V, Mn, Cu, Ti, Zr, AI, Si, Mg, Ca, Fe, Nb, P, Pb, Zn, Cr, Ba) were found in amber in the form of impurities (from traces to 3%). , Co, Na, Sr, Si, Sn, Mo, Yb). Of these, 17 were found in unaltered amber from the Klesovskoe deposit, 12 - in amber from the Beach area of the Primorskoe deposit, 11 and 13 - respectively, in amber from the Curonian Spit and Ciscarpathian region. Smallest Quantity chemical elements is found in transparent Amber. Of the listed elements, AI, Si, Ti, Ca, Fe, Mg, Cu are always present in unaltered amber, while only the first five elements are present in weathered amber.

Amber coloring

In the group of semi-precious stones, amber occupies one of the first places in the beauty of color. The amber palette contains all the colors of the rainbow. The predominant color is yellow, golden yellow, hence the term “amber color.” It is typical for honey, juices, fruits, etc. A special group consists of amber, which is of little use for crafts. gray. In the Baltics, as in other areas, the colored varieties of amber have their own names; the most common is succinite - yellow, orange, reddish, white, ivory with a high content succinic acid. The closest to succinite are ambers from the North Sea coast, from the regions of Kyiv and Kharkov, Ciscarpathia and the Carpathians. Amber from the outskirts of Kyiv is sometimes called Kyiv succinite due to its similarity to Baltic succinite. Near Gdansk, gedanite (from the Latin Gedanum - Gdansk) is widespread - yellow, wine-yellow and dirty yellow amber, much inferior in hardness to succinite. Glessite (from the ancient Greek “glessum” - amber) is red-brown, brown and black-and-white amber, containing very few impurities; When weathered, it turns into a white powdery mass.

Single-color amber is rare. Each piece has many shades, gradually turning into one another. Therefore, it seems that amber has absorbed all the colors of the nature that created it. It is sometimes transparent with a subtle yellowness, sometimes greenish, like a sea wave that washed it ashore, sometimes sunset-red, sometimes bluish, like the sky in a light haze of clouds. In amber you can find all the colors of fragrant flowers. The literature indicates that amber has 200 and even 350 shades, but it is difficult to restore their exact number; perhaps more. Primary coloring is determined by three factors: structural, scattering of white light in amber, various inclusions; secondary - by the weathering processes of amber. The structural factor is the main one. Thus, the yellow color characteristic of amber is caused by the C=O group, which occupies a certain position in the amber molecule. Yellow amber has a rich range of shades, with golden amber being especially prominent.

Variations in color and the combination of different shades of yellow in one piece depend on the initial composition of the resin, the subsequent conditions of its burial and transformation. This, as well as the mechanical admixture of pyrite, explains the green tints in amber. The unusual composition of resin is also responsible for the red color of Ukrainian amber. The blue color (from pale and sky blue to cornflower blue) is caused by the scattering of white light in a medium with small particles, which is amber. The appearance of pink color should be associated with different oxygen regimes during the transformation of the resin into amber. Under reducing conditions, green ambers could form, and with an increase in the partial pressure of oxygen, pink ambers could form. Of the foreign substances that play the role of chromophores, it should be noted, first of all, ferric iron ions. They contribute to the appearance of a greenish-yellow color. White ambers with a bluish tint have an increased amount of titanium. In some cases, the color of amber depends on the significant admixture of certain minerals in it. White and gray colors are due to pelitomorphic calcite, green - pyrite, gray - clay minerals, reddish - minerals similar in composition to goethite and hematite. Amber acquires brown and black colors due to its significant content of dark bituminous substance or brown plant residues. During the weathering process, amber, as a rule, acquires a more intense (reddish-brown, brownish) color.

Amber is optically isotropic

Amber is optically isotropic. The refractive index of the unaltered (central) part of the Klesovsky amber pieces varies from 1.539 to 1.542, the weathered crust from 1.545 to 1.546, i.e., during the weathering process, the refractive index of amber increases. In each specific case, its value depends on the elemental composition of amber and the degree of weathering. Most ambers are weakly anisotropic. Anisotropy is associated with the stresses that arise during hardening and fossilization of the resin, as well as with various mechanical stresses to which amber is subjected after its formation.

Amber does not dissolve in water

Amber does not dissolve in water. Partially soluble in some organic compounds - alcohol (20-25%), ether (18-23%), chloroform (up to 20%), linseed oil. Completely disintegrates in hot concentrated nitric acid. It softens in boiling water (at a temperature of 100 C).

Thermal properties of amber

The thermal properties of amber are largely explained by its amorphous and polymeric structure. They were determined by heating amber to 800 C in electric oven in a two-chamber porcelain crucible using a chromel-alumel thermocouple. At the beginning of heating, amber becomes cloudy, and at 125-175 C it swells and gradually softens. The lowest reaction temperature was observed in transparent straw-yellow amber; the highest was observed in rosin-yellow and weathered amber. With further heating, the amber melts: it boils quietly, releasing vapors with an aromatic odor. In this regard, in the Middle Ages it was used for incense in temples and churches. In ancient Rus', amber was therefore called “sea incense”. When heated without air access to 140-150 C, amber becomes plastic. Technological methods for its processing - heating and pressing - are based on this property. During the first reception, the clouded Amber becomes transparent, and during the pressing process, small pieces of amber (crumbs) turn into blanks of any shape.

Electrical conductivity of amber

Amber conducts electricity poorly, but when rubbed against woolen fabric, it becomes electrified and retains negative electrical charges for a long time. At the same time, amber attracts pieces of paper, straws, and hair. This property is inherent in all resins, but none of them has such an attractive power as amber. The concept of electricity comes from amber. IN ancient Greece amber spindles and spindles were in use; being electrified by friction, they cleaned the yarn of various impurities. The dielectric constant of amber is 2.863.

Amber luminesces. Amber luminesces when exposed to ultraviolet irradiation. Transparent amber glows pale blue, cloud, bastard and bone - milky white with a faint bluish tint. The intensity of the blue glow depends on the degree of transparency of the amber. The more transparent the amber, the denser the luminescent colors in it.

They can vary from light and grayish blue to violet. The weathered crust luminesces in brown tones. Possible reasons luminescence of amber are features internal structure and the presence of various impurities. In addition to photoluminescence, amber has triboluminescence, which is revealed in the dark when amber is ground in a mortar in the form of a weak yellow glow. However, this property is not expressed in Baltic and Ukrainian amber.

Amber Density

Porosity of amber

Amber is porous, which makes it permeable to liquids and gaseous substances. Amber swells in water and some organic substances. When saturated with liquids, its volume increases by 8%. The highest degree of void filling is achieved with evacuation and forced saturation.

Amber hardness

Amber is a soft organic substance. Its hardness is 2-2.5 on the Mohs scale. When measured on a microhardness tester at a load of 100 g, it ranges from 16.3 to 38.7 kg/mm3. The hardness of amber successively increases from opaque through translucent to transparent varieties. The hardest are transparent ambers. Hardness depends on many reasons. The main ones are the composition of amber and the content of impurity elements in it. The more of the latter, mainly iron, the higher the hardness. With increasing load, an abnormal increase in hardness is observed. This is explained by the peculiarities of the internal structure of amber, in particular their viscosity. The degree of hardness of amber is affected by its fragility. It is characterized by a brittleness number - the load at which the first visible crack appears. Amber takes polish well. Only after polishing is the true beauty of the stone revealed, placing it above any of the artificial materials. Compared to untreated amber, polished amber is slightly darker. Amber has embalming properties.

Amber oxidation

With prolonged exposure to air, the surface of amber changes. If you break or saw a piece of amber, you will see that its surface is colored more intensely than the central part. In air, amber oxidizes relatively quickly. This is clearly visible on the polished surfaces of the samples. Within a year they changed their color. Light amber turned yellow, and over time the yellowness spread into the depths of the piece. In cracked areas, this process occurs more fully than in a solid piece, and ends with the formation of an oxidation (weathering) crust, often broken up by thin cracks into polygonal sections of different sizes.(1)

Instructions

Counterfeits that do not have the properties of amber, but successfully imitate it in appearance, are very common. Natural amber can be distinguished by color, shape and degree of transparency. There are three types of amber: (this category includes foam and bone amber), translucent (in this category of amber there are accumulations of voids that give cloudy opacities) and completely transparent. All three categories are counterfeited with equal success.

If natural amber is rubbed with clean wool, it will become electrified and attract pieces of thread, dust, and paper. With a fake one, the effect will be much weaker. Imitation can be determined using a saline solution, but this method is only suitable for unmounted amber. The stone is placed in a salt solution, the fake will sink, and the amber floats on the surface. Authenticity is determined using a magnifying glass; the power must be at least tenfold. Wavy formations that appear during sintering of particles indicate a fake. In this way you can distinguish amber from various types polymers and plastics.

It can be much more difficult to distinguish amber from copal, with which they are similar in color and shape. Copal is a fossil resin used in the manufacture of varnishes. When heated, the smell of copal is unpleasant, and amber releases a clove-like aroma. Copal melts more easily and does not become electrified by friction. In essence, it is an unripe resin, and its composition is identical to natural amber, but it is very soft, sometimes even a fingernail can leave a dent on it. If you apply a drop of alcohol to a stone and the surface becomes sticky, it is copal. Acetone stains remain on copal, but not on amber. If copal is processed in an autoclave, it acquires all the properties of natural amber and it is even more difficult to distinguish a fake.

Pressed amber is another common alternative to amber. The product is obtained by processing small pieces of amber with amber flour and adding dyes. At a temperature of 200-250°C and high pressure, the amber crumb melts and becomes a homogeneous mass, retaining almost all the properties of amber. Using a microscope, experts note the changed shape of the bubbles and general character structure, now resembling a mosaic or patchwork quilt. This kind of amber, unlike natural amber, softens under the influence of ether - the surface becomes sticky. It is believed that after heating, the special natural sequence and polarity of the molecules is lost, and it is this that is distinguished by its ability to cure many diseases.

Amber- petrified fossil resin, hardened resin of the most ancient coniferous trees Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. It is used mainly for the manufacture of jewelry and haberdashery, costume jewelry; It is also used in small quantities in pharmaceuticals and perfumery, in the food, chemical and electronics industries.

See also:

STRUCTURE

Does not form crystals, amorphous framework polymer.

PROPERTIES

Birefringence, dispersion, and pleochroism are absent. The absorption spectrum cannot be interpreted. Luminescence is bluish-white to yellow-green, in birmite it is blue. Flammable - ignites from the flame of a match. Electrified by friction. Excellent polishing. In the open air, it actively oxidizes (aging), which over time leads to changes in the chemical composition, color, and increased fragility.

MORPHOLOGY

One of the significant criteria of distinction, important for technical qualification, is the fragility number of the fossil resin. It is determined using a microhardness tester, calculated in grams, and varies from values exceeding 200 g (in the case of viscous resins such as succinite) to values of the order of 20-50 g - in the case of brittle resins such as gedanite.

Amber is also characterized by a degree of transparency associated with the unequal concentration of microscopic voids in its body. Based on this feature, amber can be called:
“transparent” - without voids, highest quality
“cloudy” - translucent, with a cavity density of 600/mm 2
“bastard” - opaque, with a cavity density of 2500/mm 2
“bone” - opaque, reminiscent of ivory in color, with a cavity density of 900,000/mm 2
“foamy” - opaque, resembling in appearance sea foam, with various cavities from the smallest to very large, several mm.
Amber is also distinguished by color: there are no fewer shades of amber than there are colors in the spectrum. The reason for such diversity is usually the presence in the body of amber of substances and minerals foreign to the resin. For example, sulfur pyrites or algae give amber a greenish tint. Some minerals can even give amber a special silvery tint.

According to other characteristics, “Overburden amber” is sometimes distinguished - it lies in layers later than the typical bearing layer, samples are distinguished by a thick weathering crust; “Rotten amber” is a variety that is, as it were, transitional from succinite to gedanite (gedano-succinite), sometimes “rotten amber” is mistakenly called gedanite; “Immature amber” - otherwise crantzit.

Inclusions are often found in amber, so-called “inclusions” - arthropods stuck to a drop of resin were covered with new portions of resin, as a result of which the insect died in a quickly solidified mass, which ensured good preservation of the smallest details. Inclusions larger than 10 mm allow the stone to be classified as precious.

ORIGIN

The initial act in the formation of amber was the abundant release of resin from conifers. The reasons for it are very diverse. The main one should be considered a sharp warming of the climate. Pines were also sensitive to external influences. During thunderstorms, hurricanes and similar phenomena, they secreted resin-sap, which had a protective function: quickly hardening, the resin dried on the affected area, protecting the tree from infection through the wound. The bulk of the resin flowed from trees broken during the spring windbreaks. Resin flowed no less abundantly when various forest pests gnawed, pierced and gouged the bark. The trees were forced to heal the wounds inflicted on them. Thick sticky resin formed nodules, clots, clusters, and drops on the trees, which, unable to withstand their own weight, fell to the ground. Sometimes the resin release process was interrupted and resumed after some time, which contributed to the formation of multilayer resin secretions. Insects landed on the resin and stuck to it. Unable to free themselves from the sticky mass, they remained in it forever.

At the second stage, the resin was buried in forest soils. It was accompanied by a number of physicochemical transformations of the resin, the nature of which largely depended on the conditions in which the resin was exposed. In dry, well-aerated soil, the resin was transformed with the participation of oxygen. The resin's stability increased and its hardness increased. In wetlands, in anaerobic conditions, the resin retained its brittleness.

The third stage in the formation of amber is marked by erosion, transfer and deposition of fossil resins into the water basin. Conditions favorable for the emergence and accumulation of amber are associated with the geochemical and hydrodynamic specifics of the basin.

The transformation of resin into amber occurs with the participation of oxygen-containing, potassium-enriched alkaline silt waters, which, when interacting with the resin, contribute to the appearance of succinic acid and its esters in it. At the final stages of this process, not only amber is formed, but also glauconite, a mineral that constantly accompanies amber accumulations, i.e., the transformation of fossil resin into amber and the formation of glauconite occur in the same redox environment. The discovery of glauconite is evidence of a slightly alkaline and slightly reducing environment. The absence of this mineral in the rock is further evidence of intense aeration of sediments.

APPLICATION

Since ancient times, amber has been used to make all kinds of jewelry and household items. Amber was used to make not only wearable jewelry, but also practical items such as cigarette cases, ashtrays, caskets, caskets and even watches. The famous Amber Room occupies a special place in art.

Small grains, jewelry production waste and contaminated substandard amber are valuable chemical raw materials for the production of succinic acids, oils and rosin used in the perfume, pharmaceutical and paint and varnish industries.

Amber is also an exceptionally good electrical insulator. Its electrical resistivity is ρ = 10 17 Ohm m, and the dielectric loss tangent tan δ = 0.001. Only fluoroplastic-4 can compete with amber, for which ρ = 10 15 -10 18 Ohm m, tan δ ≤ 0.0001. Amber insulators were used (especially in the 1960s, before the widespread introduction of fluoroplastic) in the ionization chambers of X-ray meters. Typically, fused amber was used - the so-called “ambroid”.

Amber (eng. Amber) - C 10 H 16 O + (H 2 S)

CLASSIFICATION

Strunz (8th edition)	9/C.01-10

In the first half of July 2011, on the initiative of the Interregional Club “Teacher of the Year” and “Teacher’s Newspaper”, the Tenth Interregional Ecological Expedition of Russian Schoolchildren was held. This year the territory of its holding was National Park“Curonian Spit” on the Baltic Sea coast, and the organizers of the program were the Ministry of Education of the Kaliningrad Region and the Kaliningrad Regional Children's Center for Environmental Education and Tourism. For two weeks, more than 150 schoolchildren from 23 regions of Russia and the Republic of Bulgaria were engaged in research activities under the guidance of forty teachers - winners of the All-Russian and regional “Teacher of the Year” competitions. We offer interested teachers one of the thirty original educational research methods of the Tenth Expedition. Subject of study - physicochemical characteristics the main mineral wealth of the Kaliningrad region, amber.

Goals:

Study the history, chemical and physical properties of amber, evaluate its practical significance;

Develop creative thinking, observation, the ability to cogently express one’s point of view, and draw generalizing conclusions;

Develop skills in performing laboratory experiments, using chemical equipment, and evaluating the results of actions performed.

Equipment and reagents: samples of amber, incense, resin of coniferous plants, table salt, concentrated sulfuric acid, ether, alcohol lamp, tongs, bottle of water, matches, magnet, scales, weights, piece of woolen fabric, test tubes, test tube holder.

Progress of the lesson

Theoretical part.
Experimental part.
Conclusions.
Reflection.

Theoretical part

The first stage is the challenge.

Game "Yes-no"

Amber is a mineral.
Amber has been known to mankind since ancient times.
Amber burns well.
Amber can be dissolved.
The composition of amber and resin is the same.
Amber and magnet have similar properties.
There are several large world deposits of amber.
Flies and bees can be found in amber.
There are more than 300 shades of amber.
Amber allows you to detect poison.
The word “amber” sounds the same among all nations
Jewelers consider amber interspersed with air and water to be the most valuable
Polished samples can be found in nature
The largest sample of natural amber weighs more than 20 kg

The second stage is understanding the information.

The class is divided into groups that work with information, prepare for a performance, and report .

Work with text.

1. Legends and myths about amber.

2. Extraction and processing of amber.

3. Origin of amber.

4. Amber.

5. The hardness of amber.

6. The ability of amber to become electrified.

7. Inclusions in amber.

8. Chemical composition and properties.

9. Healing properties of amber.

10. Application of amber.

11. Perception of amber.

Legends and myths about amber

Since people learned to use amber - and this happened at least 5-6 thousand years ago - attempts have been made repeatedly to unravel the mystery of its origin.

Both in scientific works and in works of oral folk art, versions were proposed that were sometimes not inferior to each other in terms of the degree of fantasticness.

Nowadays, no one doubts that amber is a mineral of organic origin, belonging to typical resins, but it was not immediately that scientists came to a consensus on this issue.

Some researchers were convinced, for example, that amber was solidified oil, others were inclined to consider it fossilized honey from wild bees. It has also been suggested that this is sea foam, frozen under the influence of sunlight, a waste product of forest ants, thickened “solar ether”, mountain oil, earthly fat... And so on.

There were many hypotheses, which is not surprising. Amber is not only completely different from other gems, but also itself exhibited such a variety of shapes, textures, structures, sizes, demonstrated such a richness of shades, and possessed such unusual chemical and physical properties that in former times it often baffled researchers. And in fact, what is it: in the fire it burns like coal, crackling and smoky; melts when heated without air access; becomes electrified during friction; In salt water, certain varieties of amber are suspended - floating.

While science was searching for the truth, painstakingly collecting evidence, the people quickly explained everything in a miraculous, supernatural way.

This always happens: where reason and logic are powerless, space for creativity appears and imagination begins to work. The organ responsible for fantasy is especially well developed in children and young people. Therefore, all the legends about amber appeared at the dawn of civilization.

Among the mass of fantastic circumstances and details, sometimes you can find grains of truth.

For example, the ancient Greek myth of Phaeton (which came down to us as told by the Roman poet Publius Ovid Naso, born in 43 BC) clearly indicates the plant origin of amber - long before scientists came to the same conclusion.

The theme of tears is present in almost all legends about amber. They often talk about tragedies on a cosmic scale.

Thus, in the tragedy of Sophocles (5th century BC), amber is the tears of the fallen hero Meleager, who became a victim of his mother’s curse.

In the Lithuanian legend of Jurata and Kastitis, the sea goddess sheds amber tears mourning her lover.

In all legends, amber is news from the past, containing some secret meaning. Many people try to read the “message” - and each nation does it in its own way.

The Russian people also have a fairy tale-parable about a singing stone, which only a person with a pure heart can hear.

And the Baltic legend about the bird Gauja connects the origin of amber with the crime to which the cruel king of an overseas country pushed his faithful servant.

Academician A.E. Fersman wrote: “The most remarkable stone of antiquity was amber, which, like a sparkling gem, passes through all centuries and peoples right up to the present day.”

The path of amber in the history of mankind began with a talisman, faith in magical power stone...

Amber has been known to man since ancient times. The ability of amber to attract hairs, fluffs and other materials of this type was one of the first manifestations of electricity, a natural force whose name comes from the Greek word for “electron” - amber.

Amber burns with the release of a resinous odor, so it is called: “sakrum” - resin, “gorily” (Ukraine), “bernstein” (Germany), “electron” (Greek).

The Kaliningrad region hosts the world's only industrial extraction of amber; 90% of the world's reserves are concentrated here.

Extraction and processing of amber

Amber mining has its own history. The oldest method was “scooping,” when pieces of amber were caught from boats with nets. “Scooping” has been replaced by “pricking”. This method consists of tearing amber from the bottom of shallow water using sharp peaks.

By the 6th century, people learned to extract amber from shallow wells and small quarries in the beach area. In the middle of the last century, industrial production began in the village of Palminiken (Yantarny) through mines and adits. In 1922, due to the difficulty of mining, the underground mines were mothballed. This was facilitated by open-pit mining in a quarry that was founded in 1921 north of the village of Palminiken. The main task of the quarry- provide access to the “blue earth” - the richest amber-bearing layer. This layer is broken up by hydraulic guns and in the form of a pulp, a suspension of rock in water, transported through a pipeline to the processing plant.

To separate amber from waste rock, its physical property is used - to float in a supersaturated salt solution. It is then sorted into categories based on size. Large pieces are used for unique works, for hand processing, medium pieces - for pendants, brooches, earrings, and souvenirs. Small ones are used for beads, especially small ones - for amber paintings and for processing - pressing, melting, or making varnishes and succinic acid.

After sorting, raw amber is polished in grinding drums to remove the oxide crust. To grind stones of complex shapes with curved surfaces, the drum is filled with a special grinding paste, into which pieces of wood are placed simultaneously with the amber to clean the unreachable surfaces. Amber passes several grinding drums with gradually decreasing granularity of the walls. Some stones are subjected to “heating” - heat treatment to create microcracks that effectively refract sunlight. The final stage of processing is polishing in a drum with felt walls. Then the amber in the hands of the craftsmen turns into the final product.

It is now known that, together with pearls, jet and coral, amber is classified as an organogenic stone, that is, of organic origin. For example, 98% of Baltic amber consists of resin from the Pinus sussinifera pine tree. The “age” of Baltic amber does not exceed 35 million years. However, there are more ancient ambers in the world.

Origin of amber

There have been many hypotheses about the origin of amber, which is not surprising. Amber is not only completely different from other gems, but also itself exhibited such a variety of shapes, textures, structures, sizes, demonstrated such a richness of shades, and possessed such unusual chemical and physical properties that in former times it often baffled researchers. And in fact, what is it: in the fire it burns like coal, crackling and smoky; melts when heated without air access; becomes electrified during friction; In salt water, certain varieties of amber are suspended - floating. The stone feels warm to the touch. In addition, a variety of insects can be seen inside some pieces of amber. How did they get there? After all, amber is most often found on the seashore, and butterflies and flies, as we know, have never been found in the sea...

Amber varies in shape, color and degree of transparency.

The shape of a piece of amber was determined by where the resin came from. This occurred either inside or on the surface of the damaged tree trunk. When there was an abundant release, the resin flowed down in the form of drops, icicles, and streaks. In the collection of the Kaliningrad Amber Museum, the largest drop has a diameter of slightly more than 5 cm. But much larger ones are also known - the size of a goose egg. The length of the deposits in the form of icicles is 10-12 cm. Small lens-shaped and crescent-shaped pebbles were apparently born in “resin pockets” that formed in the cavities between the growth rings of trees. Traces of wood tissue are often visible on the ambers frozen here.

The location of the resin between the trunk and the bark led to the formation of subcortical forms. The texture of wood or bark is clearly visible on them. The pieces that arise in large subcortical cavities reach a weight of two kilograms. Even larger specimens of amber were born where there was a large open wound on the tree trunk. The resin expired for a long time and accumulated in the ground. The largest known sample of succinite is kept in Berlin and weighs 9 kg 750 g. The Russian giant from the collection of the Kaliningrad Museum is significantly smaller - 4 kg 280 g.

Amber

The color of amber varies from almost white and light yellow to red-brown and almost black.Brown and black varieties are colored by mineral inclusions such as iron oxides, pyrite or organic matter.

Artificial amber is sometimes repainted green or black. Experts distinguish up to 350 shades of amber. The intensity of color, the degree of transparency or opacity of a gem largely depend on the microscopic voids (air bubbles) that are present in each stone, on their number, size and placement. Amber containing air or water bubbles is not highly valued. Such specimens of his are called bastards.

The degree of transparency of amber is very variable. The following types of amber are distinguished: transparent, in which there are single voids, translucent or translucent, in which there are large accumulations of voids leading to cloudiness (cloudy, bastard) and opaque (bone and foam), in which the number of voids can reach 900,000 per 1 cube mm.

The color and transparency of amber were in ancient times the standard of its value. IN Ancient Rome white and waxy amber was cheap and was used only for smoking incense, while reddish transparent amber was highly valued. At the beginning of our era, they valued mainly two of its varieties: as if boiled in honey and transparent golden. In the countries of the East, transparent yellow with a greenish tint and milky white cloudy ambers were highly valued; the latter were attributed especially healing properties.

Amber hardness

The Baltic gem belongs to relatively soft stones: it can be scratched with a knife. The hardness of amber on the Mohs scale ranges from 2 to 3. For comparison: the hardness of gypsum is 2, quartz is 7, diamond is 10. Amber is fragile, easily broken by an impact or when dropped, but at the same time it is plastic. And this is a very valuable quality, thanks to which the stone lends itself well to mechanical processing. Amber can be sawed, cut, drilled, ground, polished. When heated, it first softens and then, at a temperature of 287 - 360 0 C, melts. This property is used for heating and pressing. The absence of a specific melting point indicates the amorphous nature of amber, i.e. Amber has not a crystalline, but an amorphous structure.

Amber's ability to become electrified

The famous philosopher Thales of Miletus noted: the daughter was spinning yarn with an amber spindle, tried to clean the spindle, but she failed. This is how amber’s ability to become electrified was discovered (7th – 6th centuries BC).

Amber entered the language of different peoples as a substance with different properties.

Even the ancient Greeks knew the property of amber rubbed with wool to attract small objects. The word “electricity” itself comes from the Greek word “electron” (from the star Electra in the constellation Taurus), which means amber in Russian. When amber was used to make jewelry, it was rubbed to give the stone a shine. And rubbed amber revealed an amazing feature: it attracted fluff, hair, and feathers. This attraction seemed surprising because it was the first “action at a distance” noticed by people: after all, all other effects of bodies on each other appeared only with their direct contact. The ancient Greek scientist Thales even suggested that amber is alive.

For more than two thousand years, the property of rubbed amber to attract objects has given it special fame. But in the 16th century, the English scientist William Gilbert discovered that other substances - for example, diamond, crystal, sulfur, resin - attract light objects after rubbing. Gilbert called this “attractive force” electric, after the amber electron.

It is now known that when rubbed with wool, amber becomes electrified, that is, it receives an electric charge, just like wool. This method of electrification is called electrification by friction.

Being electrified, amber electrifies light objects without even touching them. This method of electrification is called electrification through influence (via an electric field). As a result, both amber and, for example, fluff turn out to be electrified. But during electrification they received charges of different signs and therefore are attracted to each other.

Amber can become electrified, but is not capable of conducting electricity. It is a dielectric.

Inclusions in amber

Amber has amazing property, small animals, especially insects and arachnids, as well as plant remains, which are called inclusions, are preserved in it for tens of millions of years without external changes. They are quite rare. Scientists estimate that no more than 10% of transparent stone contains inclusions. Amber with inclusions has always been of great value. Aristotle also mentioned them in his works. Already in Ancient Rome they learned how to make clever fakes of them, which were exposed by researchers only in the 19th century. Inclusions were often kept in the treasuries of monarchs. A huge collection of amber with various animal inclusions belonged to the Polish king Augustus II the Strong (1670-1733).

Inclusions are found exclusively in the external secretions of resin - icicles and scum. The entry and preservation of the insect in amber was not least due to the size and viscosity of the isolated resin. Flies, mosquitoes, ants, beetles, and spiders stuck to its surface were filled with the second and third scum. Larger insects, not to mention amphibians, escaped from the resin captivity, leaving some parts of their bodies, most often limbs. Once upon a time, there was a small lizard in the collection of the University of Königsberg (Königsberg is now called Kaliningrad). IN last years Several similar specimens have been discovered that have varying degrees of preservation.

Amber with insects frozen in them had a special commercial value in ancient times. At the beginning of our era, Phoenician merchants paid 120 swords and 60 daggers for amber containing a fly.

IN early XIX centuries, such ambers were especially fashionable in France and Russia. There was a surge in fashion for them in Russia before the start of the February revolution.

Scientific research has revealed more than 3,000 species of insects (beetles, spiders, ants, mites, dipterans and even small animals - lizards, frogs, etc.) and more than 200 species of plants in “amber traps”.

Chemical composition and properties

Amber is heterogeneous in its composition. Its main components are carbon (approximately 78%), oxygen (11%), hydrogen (10%). Usually the following formula for amber as a mineral is given - C 10 H 16 O. It has a resinous luster, rarely silky.

Amber is capable of oxidizing under the influence of atmospheric oxygen. Low grades of amber have found use in religious rites, as it burns well and emits a pleasant smoke - incense. In the past, newlyweds and newborns were fumigated with the smoke of burning amber for good luck. It has been noticed that asthma and cough disappear with this smoke and annoying flies do not fly into the temple.

Typical for real amber is the content of succinic acid (CH 2 COOH) 2. Its content ranges from 3.2% to 8.2%, but in all varieties of other resins it is either absent or in negligible quantities; This is the main difference between amber and similar resins.

Amber is chemically inert. This makes it possible to make dishes for active acids and medical preparations from it.

It is insoluble in water, both fresh and salt.

Healing properties of amber

Amber was proclaimed a panacea for all diseases in ancient times; Medicinal white amber was especially valued by experts. It was believed that there were practically no diseases for which this gem would not bring healing. It supposedly treats myopia and cataracts, heart ailments and tonsillitis, stops vomiting and hemoptysis, expels stones from the kidneys and liver and promotes urination. Thus, Martin Luther always carried a piece of amber in his pocket in order to prevent the formation of kidney stones. Amber, drunk in the form of powder with water, treated stomach diseases; when ground with rose oil or honey, it helped with diseases of the eyes and ears, and healed cracks in the legs. With the help of amber you can even detect poison: a rainbow flickering of sparks appears in the glass, accompanied by a crackling sound.

Amber was credited with the ability to comfort people. A piece of unprocessed amber, placed at the head of the bed, cured insomnia and delirium. The gem constantly supported optimism, the desire of its owner to make the right choice in friendship and love, and strengthened his intuition.

Of course, the capabilities of amber are greatly exaggerated, but something is not denied by modern science: of course, amber has a beneficial effect on nervous system, its “sunny” color is pleasant to the eye, and touching the warm, smooth surface not only brings pleasure, but also helps you concentrate and gives you self-confidence.

More than 40 compounds have already been identified in the composition of this gem, and today one of the vitamins - D3 - succinic acid, an antiseptic iodol, is obtained from it, a substance is isolated that is added to toothpaste and ointment for rheumatism, etc.

Modern medicine explains medicinal properties amber by the fact that it contains succinic acid, which is a nonspecific biostimulant.

Application of amber

The use of amber is due to its properties. The comparative hardness of amber combined with its ductility makes this material unique for fine carving. Transparency and rich gamut color shades Amber has long attracted craftsmen to it.

Amber widely entered into the life of the inhabitants of the Baltic Sea coast in the Neolithic era - in the 4th millennium BC. They learned to process it with flint and bone tools - grinding, sawing, drilling, and created various decorations and amulets in the form of human and animal figures.

Already in ancient times, amber was the most important object of exchange, which was popular far beyond the Baltic region. Thanks to archaeological excavations and information from written sources, it was possible to establish trade routes along which amber from the Baltic shores went to the countries of ancient civilizations.

Information about the “gold of the north” is contained in ancient written sources. Thus, in Homer’s “Odyssey” (YIII century BC), amber is mentioned in several songs as a precious material for making women’s jewelry and decorating royal palaces.

Amber was especially highly valued in the Ancient Roman Empire. Not only jewelry was made from it, but also household items: vessels for wine, bottles for perfumes, etc. During the reign of Emperor Nero (mid-1st century AD), amber was even used to decorate the amphitheater where gladiator fights took place: it they wove fences into nets, covered the arena and stretchers, and encrusted weapons.

In Ancient Rus' in the 10th-13th centuries they also knew amber and valued jewelry made from it. This is confirmed by excavations of ancient Russian cities: Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, Ryazan, Smolensk, in which amber jewelry and amber processing workshops were discovered.

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Teutonic Order conquered the amber-rich Eastern Baltic region. He declared amber reserves his property and established a monopoly on its extraction and trade. For the slightest piece of amber, hidden from the authorities, coastal residents were subjected to torture and execution, including hanging and wheeling.

We see the initial use of amber in oval, round and multifaceted beads, which are found in all countries among women's jewelry. Necklaces and bracelets equally charmingly adorned women of the black, yellow and white races.

After a transitional period, when amber served only as a material for decorating other things - furniture, boxes, etc. - artists again paid attention to it and began to make independent artistic objects from it.

In the Middle Ages in Europe they could not get rid of their mistrust of amber because of its fragility and fragility, and they used it little, but the Renaissance appreciated it, and the heyday of its use was in the 17th and 18th centuries. The use of amber from the middle of the 17th century covers an increasingly wider area of objects; behind wearable items - brooches, pins, rings, earrings, etc. - appear glasses, vases, bowls, shot glasses, figurines, bas-reliefs, snuff boxes, boxes, knobs, pipes, buttons, bottles, rosaries, combs, knife handles, hilts sword...

Louis XIII in 1613 owned an amber chess with the same board, and in 1687 Louis XIV gave the envoy of the Siamese king a number of luxurious gifts, including several outstanding amber things: several cabinets with the finest bas-reliefs, a large vase framed in gold, and two mirrors in wide amber frames, decorated with figures, bas-reliefs and ornaments. The French king himself owned a large yellow and red vase in the shape of a gondola, carried by two dragons, and a large yellow vase in the form of a ship, decorated with children's figurines, entwined with flowers and fruits and crowned with white figures of Neptune and sea horses.

Among the rare items made of amber, the Moscow Armory Chamber preserves the so-called sovereign staff of Patriarch Filaret Nikitich, brought to him as a gift in 1632 by Duke Frederick of Courland. The latter received it from Prussia from the Elector of Brandenburg. There is also a cup made of amber, presented by Prince Lvov to Tsarevich John Mikhailovich in 1635, candlesticks and other large things made of amber - gifts from the Electors of Brandenburg. Old masters of processing solar stone distinguish over 250 varieties of it. Based on the size of the pieces, it is divided into three grades: ornamental (approximately 15% of mined amber is used for jewelry), pressed and varnished. Pressed (ambroid) is made from small amber. Unlike the natural sample, the gas inclusions (bubbles) here are not round, but elongated, and the boundary between the transparent and cloudy areas has a feathery configuration.

In technology, amber is used in two forms: as an insulator (does not conduct electric current) and as a product for obtaining amber varnish.

When they learned to extract amber oil from amber, they began to take it for spasms and rheumatism. In Germany, amber vessels were used for blood transfusions.

The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo became an amazing work of amber masters. The Amber Room was a gift from Frederick William I to Peter I. All the walls of the room were lined with amber mosaics of various shapes, colors and sizes. Rastrelli decorated the amber panels with mirrors in white and gold frames. During the Great Patriotic War, the Amber Room was lost.

Thanks to its diverse properties, amber has found wide application not only in jewelry.

Perception of amber

Amber has become popular since the Neolithic. The remains of plants and animals preserved in resin surprised man, and he attributed various divine qualities to the stone: the ability to absorb harmful substances, give people immortality, and cure diseases. It is known that Emperor Nero gave two tall slaves for a small amber figurine. Later, beads, rosaries, amulets, and figurines of gods began to be made from amber.

In Russia, an amber necklace weighing several pounds was put on the wet nurse, believing that this amber barrier would prevent anything bad from happening to the child. In Ethiopia and Egypt, amber was used for embalming.

experimental part

Determination of density

Density is determined by the formula ρ= m / V , where m is body mass, V – body volume. We determine the volume using a beaker of water, noting the initial volume of water and its subsequent volume when a piece of the object under study is immersed in it. We measure mass using scales.

Hardness test

Hardness is determined using the Mohs scale. The hardness of a mineral is measured by a rough comparative assessment of the hardness of materials according to the softer-harder system.

Attitude to boiling

Place a piece of amber in a test tube of boiling water. Describe what you observe.

Finding out the sailing conditions

Add samples of the amber to be studied into fresh and salt water (prepared at the rate of 2 tablespoons of table salt per glass of water). Compare and draw conclusions.

Electrical Properties Study

A sample of amber should be rubbed on a woolen cloth and brought to finely chopped tissue paper and pieces of cotton wool. Compare the ability of amber and a magnet to attract objects.

Relation to heat

Place a piece of amber in a test tube and heat it. Describe what you observe.

Flammability test

Place a piece of amber into the candle flame. Describe what you observe.

Solubility in acids

Immerse a piece of amber in a solution of concentrated sulfuric acid. Describe what you observe. Note the change in color of the acid solution and the piece of amber.

Relation to the action of ether

Rub the surface of the object under study with a piece of cloth soaked in ether. Describe the observed changes.

To verify the authenticity of the amber, students are provided with an information sheet.

Information leaflet

When you buy an amber product, the question of its authenticity always arises. Unfortunately, fakes are becoming more and more common. Amber products are not subject to mandatory certification, so you just have to rely on the honesty of the seller, or on the “public offer” provided for by the Civil Code. This means that if the seller publicly, or better yet in writing, claims that the amber is genuine, then he is legally responsible for this.

Is it possible to identify amber yourself? There are several ways. But first, about some materials that are not amber:

1. Copal (and some other similar “young” resins).

Refers to “immature” fossil resins. Does not contain succinic acid. Dissolves in the ether. Main deposits - Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, Africa, Central and South America.

To diagnose, simply rub the surface with a cotton swab soaked in ether. Unlike amber, a stain forms on the surface of copal.

2. Pressed amber.

Processed product at high temperature and the pressure of amber flour obtained by grinding small pieces of amber and amber production waste. The color depends on the dyes used.

It can be distinguished from natural amber in two ways:

If the surface of pressed amber is rubbed vigorously with a piece of cloth soaked in ether, it becomes sticky (unlike natural amber).

In pressed amber, one can observe flow structures, balls of dense ground mass, and small clots of dye under a magnifying glass.

3. Synthetic imitations:

Polymers;

Glass.

Glass imitations are characterized by much higher density (more than 2 g/cm3) and hardness (5).The knife does not leave scratches on the glass.

Polymer imitations are very similar in appearance to amber. Any amber is imitated: from hardened to landscape. Polymer imitations are easily detected by applying a red-hot needle to the surface. At the same time, an unpleasant chemical odor is felt. If you do the same with amber, you will smell the resin. If you scratch across the surface of the sample sharp knife, amber produces crumbs, and polymer produces shavings.

4. Imitations of amber with inclusions.

The most cunning deceivers use a substrate made of natural amber to imitate. A plant, insect, or animal is placed on such a substrate and filled with synthetic resin. It turns out to be a kind of sandwich.

As a rule, large insects, amphibians, lizards, etc. are flooded. In nature, such phenomena are extremely rare. This is due to the circumstances under which the animals fell into the amber. The resin of coniferous trees attracted insects to itself, filling them layer by layer, forming growths. After several tens of millions of years, these growths turned into amber. It is obvious that large and strong animals were easily freed from captivity.

You can identify a fake by applying a hot needle to all sides of the sample.

Conclusions and results

1. Amber is a semi-precious stone that originated 40 million years ago in the Paleogene, confined to the sedimentary cover of the Russian Platform. This is the fossilized resin of ancient pine trees. Amber contains organic compounds.

2. Many peoples of the world have used amber since ancient times. He gave them joy and brought benefits, historical facts testify to this.

3. The Kaliningrad region is the only one where there is industrial production of amber (90% of world production).

4. The physical properties of amber were studied: density (1.02 – 1.2 g/cm 3); sinks in fresh water, floats in salt water; hardness (between 2 and 3); attitude towards boiling (it darkens a little, becomes smooth and soft); electrical properties (small objects stick after rubbing with woolen cloth); relation to heating (darkens when heated, forms drops of condensation on the inner walls of the test tube, emits a resinous odor); chemical properties: burns with a smoky flame with the release of a resinous odor; charred by the action of concentrated sulfuric acid.

5. Amber is used in medicine, in jewelry, and is also a source of inspiration for people’s creativity.

6. Amber must be treated with care and rationality, because amber is an exhaustible and non-renewable resource.

7. There are different ways checking the authenticity of amber.

Reflection

Students answer test questions.

1. Amber-bearing trees include:

A. Pine

b. Poplar

V. Willow

2. Amber consists of substances:

A. Complex inorganic origin

b. Simple

V. Complex organic origin

3.The chemical composition of amber includes elements (choose the answer and write down the signs of the chemical elements):

A. Carbon, nitrogen, copper

b. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen

V. Hydrogen, silicon, nitrogen

4.The burning of amber is a phenomenon:

A. Physical

b. Chemical

5. Make up the molecular formula of succinic acid, if it is known that 1 molecule consists of: 4 carbon atoms, 6 hydrogen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms:

A. 4CH 6 O 2

b. C 6 H 2 O

V. C 4 H 6 O 2

6. Amber by origin refers to:

A. Igneous rocks

b. Sedimentary

V. Metamorphic

7. Succinic acid is used:

A. In medicine

b. In cooking, for baking

V. For preparing paints

8. The Kaliningrad region accounts for the world's amber reserves:

A. 15%

b. 80%

V. 90%

9. The amber plant is located in:

A. city of Pionersk

b. city of Svetlogorsk

V. Yantarnoye village

10. Amber production per year is:

A. 900 t.

b. 500t

V. 12 million tons

Information sources

1. Large illustrated encyclopedia of antiquities. - Prague: “Artia”, 1984.

2. Vertushkov G.N., Avdonin V.N. Physical and chemical properties of minerals and determinant of minerals by external characteristics - M.: Publishing house S.G.I. them. V.V. Vakhrusheva, 1970.

3. Geological Dictionary - M.: Gospoltekhizdat, 1960.

4. Zhukov, Slavin V.I. Fundamentals of Geology. M., 1983.

5. Klenov A.S. An entertaining mineralogical encyclopedia. M.: Pedagogika-Press, 2000.

6. Brief geological dictionary for schoolchildren / Ed. Nemkova G.I. – M.: Nedra, 1989.

7. Nikolaev S.M. Stones and legends. - Novosibirsk: Sib. Univ. publishing house, 2007.

8. Savkevich S.S. Yantar.- L.: Nedra, 1970.

9. Sobolevsky V.I. Wonderful minerals. -M: Enlightenment, 1983.

10. Srebrodolsky B.I. Amber. – M.: Nauka, 1987.

11. Walker D. Stones and minerals. - M.: “Flamingo”, 1996.

12. Fersman A.E. Stories about gems. – M.: Detgiz, 1957.

Websites:

http://www.tzar.ru/ Website of the State Museum-Reserve “Tsarskoe Selo”

http://spb.rfn.ru/ RGTRK website St. Petersburg, 05.13.2003

http://www.sverdel.com/photo.htm Photos by I. Sverdel

http://www.fegi.ru/ Far Eastern Geological Institute FEB RAS

http://old.priroda.ru/index.php Ministry natural resources Russian Federation

Lyudmila Buhanistova , chemistry teacher high school No. 1 of the village of Maslyanino, Novosibirsk region,

Irina Markina, chemistry teacher, director of the ecological and biological lyceum No. 35 of the city of Maykop, Republic of Adygea

Composition and properties

The elemental composition of unaltered amber from the Beach section of the Primorsky (Southern Baltic) and Klesovsky (Northern Ukraine) deposits, amber occurrences of the Carpathians and Ciscarpathians is close. The average contents of the main components (C and H) are respectively 80.78 and 10.12; 78.05 and 9.55; 79.68 and 10.07; 78.26 and 9.99%.

Ukrainian amber contains up to 3.19% sulfur, which reduces the ornamental qualities of the stone. After burning amber, ash remains. The ash content of Baltic succinite is small - 0.2%, bastard and bone - 0.8%. The ash content of Ukrainian (Klesovsky) amber reaches 8.7%. A significant amount of ash in amber indicates a noticeable content of mechanical impurities of mineral substances. During the weathering process, amber becomes more oxygenated, and the content of other components decreases.

24 chemical elements (Y, V, Mn, Cu, Ti, Zr, Al, Si, Mg, Ca, Fe, Nb, P, Pb, Zn, Cr, Ba) were found in amber in the form of impurities (from traces to 3%). , Co, Na, Sr, Si, Sn, Mo, Yb). Of these, 17 were found in unaltered amber from the Klesovsky deposit, 12 - in amber from the Beach area of the Primorsky deposit, 11 and 13 - respectively, in amber from the Curonian Spit and Ciscarpathian region. The smallest amount of chemical elements is found in transparent amber. Of the listed elements, Al, Si, Ti, Ca, Fe, Mg, Cu are always present in unaltered amber; only the first five elements are present in weathered amber.

Quarry of the Primorsky amber deposit. The banded structure of the Blue Earth layer is visible

In the group of semi-precious stones, amber occupies one of the first places in the beauty of color. The amber palette contains all the colors of the rainbow. The predominant color is yellow, golden yellow, hence the term “amber color.” It is characteristic of honey, juices, fruits, etc. Since ancient times, white amber has been valued. Experts assured that it contains fewer impurities and therefore has the best healing properties. In China and Japan, cherry-colored amber - “dragon's blood” - was revered; it was worn by members of the ruling dynasty. The Roman Emperor Nero valued black amber. Opal-like amber with a bluish tint is rare and especially revered. Attracted by ambers of orange and cream color. The Curonian Spit is rich in greenish ambers. In Sicily, ambers of bright fiery color are found. A special group consists of gray ambers that are of little use for crafts.

In the Baltics, as in other areas, the colored varieties of amber have their own names; the most common is succinite - yellow, orange, reddish, white, ivory with a high content of succinic acid. The closest to succinite are ambers from the North Sea coast, from the regions of Kyiv and Kharkov, Ciscarpathia and the Carpathians. Amber from the outskirts of Kyiv is sometimes called Kyiv succinite due to its similarity to Baltic succinite. Near Gdansk, gedanite (from the Latin Gedanum - Gdansk) is widespread - yellow, wine-yellow and dirty yellow amber, much inferior in hardness to succinite. Glessite (from the ancient Greek “glessum” - amber) is red-brown, brown and black-and-white amber, containing very few impurities; when weathered, it turns into a white powdery mass.

There are primary and secondary colors of amber. Primary coloring is determined by three factors: structural, scattering of white light in amber, various inclusions; secondary - by the weathering processes of amber.

The structural factor is the main one. Thus, the yellow color characteristic of amber is caused by the C=0 group, which occupies a certain position in the amber molecule. Yellow amber has a rich range of shades, with golden amber being especially prominent.

Color is the standard for the value of amber. At different times, amber was valued differently. IN ancient Rome white and waxy amber were used only for incense; reddish transparent amber had a significant value. At the beginning of our era, two varieties of amber were valued - boiled in honey and golden transparent. In the countries of the East, along with yellow transparent pieces, milky-white cloudy amber, containing a high amount of succinic acid, was valued; healing properties were attributed to them. Translucent ambers with a greenish tint were considered expensive. Nowadays, the highest quality amber should be lemon yellow and evenly translucent throughout the entire mass of the piece. When you look at the color scheme of amber, it becomes clear why in the distant past amber played the role of an exchange coin.

Amber is valued not only for its diversity golden shades, but also for transparency, purity, light transmission. Pliny the Elder considered transparency to be the most valuable property of amber, the brilliance of which should be such that, looking at a piece, “a person sees the reflection of fire, and not the fire itself.”

The degree of transparency of amber varies from completely transparent to opaque. Transparency depends on the presence of voids - air bubbles - in amber, on characteristic structures, coloring, mechanical impurities of other substances and on other factors. Transparent straw-yellow amber either contains no bubbles at all, or the bubbles are so large that they have virtually no effect on transparency. In translucent amber, bubbles occupy up to 30% of the volume of the piece. In opaque amber, the bubbles are the smallest (0.001-0.1 mm), they make up up to 50% of the volume of the piece.

Zones enriched with inclusions of various sizes form whimsical patterns. In irregular pieces with a rough crust left here and there, dull on top and sparkling below, these patterns, together with natural inclusions, create original visual images. Now, like fog at dawn, a light haze floats, and a thin golden stripe creates the impression of a flaming sunset, now you can discern the foamy ribbon of the surf, it is as delicate as the amber itself. These unique paintings awaken the imagination of the artist armed with a chisel. The artist tries not only not to violate them in his products, but to further strengthen and emphasize what was inherent and unsaid in the amber by nature. This is how amazingly beautiful jewelry is born, in which amber is by no means a piece of inanimate nature, but a gem filled with inner content.

In the process of processing Baltic amber, it is practiced to divide it into grades depending on color, transparency and ability to be polished:

1) batter - transparent, with a characteristic amber color from almost colorless to dark brown. Valued for its transparency and beautiful color, easy to polish;

2) translucent (smoky) - slightly clouded with air bubbles with transparent gaps, from yellow to dark yellow, less often red and even less often blue, easily polished;

3) bastard - characterized by medium transparency and heterogeneous yellow with dark spots, easy to polish;

4) bone - opaque, white, similar to ivory, few shades, polished;

5) red - opaque, not polished;

6) layered - white, not polished;

7) foamy - opaque, white, appearance bears little resemblance to amber; its color and structure resemble frozen foam. This is the most porous, and therefore the lightest type of amber; due to its porosity, it cannot be polished;

8) dirty - gray to black, opaque, not polished;

9) overburden - red, with a thick oxidation crust, translucent, poorly polished.

This division is to some extent arbitrary, since one piece of amber can combine different varieties.

Recently, scientists using an electron microscope discovered in opaque amber many characteristic (granular, spheroidal) structures with a diameter of 7 nm or less, located randomly or in a certain order. There are very few such structures in translucent amber.

In a piece of amber, the transparent side is usually the one that was facing the sun in the primeval forest. Due to uneven heating of different parts of the resin, its transparency decreases from the outer parts to the inner ones. Therefore, the transitions from transparent amber to bone amber through smoky amber and bastard become clear. They can be observed even in one piece.

The transparency of amber decreases if it contains pieces of conifer bark, wood dust, other plant debris, as well as lumps of dirt carried into the resin by the wind or the paws of insects. The transparency of amber changes noticeably during the process of weathering (oxidation). In this case, the surface of the transparent pieces becomes cloudy and turns into a brown crust, spreading to a depth of 3 mm. Small pieces of amber, oxidizing at full capacity, become completely opaque.

Amber can be cleared and painted in various colors. Cloud amber has long been clarified by boiling in linseed and rapeseed oil. Pliny the Elder recommended taking the fat of a young pig for this purpose. When boiled, the bubbles in the amber were filled with fat and acquired the ability to transmit light. Even in the last century, glasses, prisms, magnifying and burning glasses were made from enlightened amber. With the help of the latter, gunpowder flared up faster than with glass lenses.

As a result of clearing, semicircular cracks often appear in amber, resembling fish scales. Amber processing craftsmen call such cracks that sparkle with “gold” “sun rays.” Cloudy amber is also clarified using dry calcination - heating pieces of amber in sand at temperatures above 100 ° C. The ability of amber to be colored was known to Pliny the Elder. According to him, the Romans knew a way to color amber red. Using the root of Anchusa tinctoria, sea purple and goat fat, they gave the amber the appearance gemstone and it was worth its weight in gold.

Amber is optically isotropic. The refractive index of the unaltered (central) part of the Klesovsky amber pieces varies from 1.539 to 1.542, the weathered crust - from 1.545 to 1.546, i.e., during the weathering process, the refractive index of amber increases. In each specific case, its value depends on the elemental composition of amber and the degree of weathering. Most ambers are weakly anisotropic. Anisotropy is associated with the stresses that arise during hardening and fossilization of the resin, as well as with various mechanical stresses to which amber is subjected after its formation.

X-ray patterns of amber are similar to each other. The main “halo” is recorded on them, the maximum intensity of which occurs at 0.01 nm, and a weak blurred band in the range of 0.25-0.21 nm. The similarity of the x-ray diffraction pattern of amber with the x-ray diffraction pattern of the organic compound α-amyrin was noted.

An electron paramagnetic resonance study showed that dark brown ambers have 100 times more paramagnetic centers than lighter varieties. In the weathered crust, compared to unaltered amber (in one piece), there are fewer paramagnetic centers.

The thermal properties of amber are largely explained by its amorphous and polymeric structure. They were determined by heating amber to 800 ° C in an electric furnace in a two-chamber porcelain crucible using a chromel-alumel thermocouple. At the beginning of heating, amber becomes cloudy, and at 125-175 ° C it swells and gradually softens. This is caused by the breaking of the weakest bonds in the polymer structure and the release of some volatile components. The lowest reaction temperature was observed for transparent straw-yellow amber, the highest for rosin-yellow and weathered amber.

With further heating, the amber melts: it boils quietly, releasing vapors with an aromatic odor. In this regard, in the Middle Ages it was used for incense in temples and churches. In ancient Rus', amber was therefore called “sea incense.” Amber even from the same deposit melts at different temperatures. The process of melting amber continues up to 520-550° C. Klesovsky unaltered amber finishes melting at 520-535° C, weathered amber - at 528-550° C; unaltered amber from the Primorsky deposit - at 508-525° C. When heated to 1000° C, amber almost completely evaporates, emitting a characteristic smell of sulfur and bitumen.

When heated without air access to 140-150° C, amber becomes plastic. Technological methods for its processing - heating and pressing - are based on this property. During the first reception, the clouded amber becomes transparent, and during the pressing process, small pieces of amber (crumbs) are transformed into blanks of any shape.

Amber conducts electricity poorly, but when rubbed against woolen fabric, it becomes electrified and retains negative electrical charges for a long time. At the same time, amber attracts pieces of paper, straws, and hair. This property is inherent in all resins, but none of them has such an attractive power as amber. The concept of electricity comes from amber. In ancient Greece, amber spindles and spindles were in use; being electrified by friction, they cleaned the yarn of various impurities. The dielectric constant of amber is 2.863.

Amber luminesces when exposed to ultraviolet irradiation. Transparent amber glows pale blue, cloud, bastard and bone - milky white with a faint bluish tint. The intensity of the blue glow depends on the degree of transparency of the amber. The more transparent the amber, the denser the luminescent colors in it. They can vary from light and grayish blue to violet. The weathered crust luminesces in brown tones. Possible reasons for the luminescence of amber are the peculiarities of the internal structure and the presence of various impurities. The excitation of amber is prevented by the air in the bubbles of amber, which cause its turbidity, as well as by iron, usually found in the weathering crust. The blue luminescence of amber is enhanced by the bitumen contained in the inclusions.

In addition to photoluminescence, amber has triboluminescence, which is revealed in the dark when amber is ground in a mortar in the form of a weak yellow glow. However, this property is not expressed in Baltic and Ukrainian amber.

The density of amber is approximately equal to the density of sea water. Amber sinks in fresh water and floats in salt water. That’s why pieces of amber are easily carried in the waves without sinking to the bottom. The density of unaltered amber, determined by hydrostatic weighing in heavy liquids, varies from 1 to 1.18 g/cm 3 . It is greatest (on average 1.14 g/cm3) in amber from the vicinity of Lvov, smaller (1.1; 1.06) in amber from the Ciscarpathian region and the Curonian Spit, least (1.05; 1.04) in amber from Klesovsky and Primorsky deposits. In altered (weathered) ambers the density is slightly higher. Thus, the density of Klesovo amber reaches its maximum (1.08 g/cm3) in the weathered crust. The brown weathering crust on cherry-red amber from the vicinity of Lvov has a density of 116 g/cm 3 . The highest density (1.15-1.22 g/cm3) was observed in weathered amber from the Ciscarpathian region. The density of amber depends mainly on the amount of impurity elements in it. Thus, in Ciscarpathian amber, the highest density was noted in samples with an iron content of 1%. However, in amber from the vicinity of Lvov, an inverse relationship was noted. Apparently, the increased density of Lviv amber should be associated with the special composition of the resin from which amber arose during the process of petrification (fossilization).

Amber is porous, which makes it permeable to liquid and gaseous substances. Amber swells in water and some organic substances. When saturated with liquids, its volume increases by 8%. The highest degree of void filling is achieved with evacuation and forced saturation.

Amber is a soft organic substance. Its hardness is 2-2.5 on the Mohs scale. When measured on a microhardness tester at a load of 100 g, it ranges from 16.3 to 38.7 kg/mm 3 . The lowest average hardness values under the same load were noted for amber from the Curonian Spit (26.9 kg/mm 2), the highest (29.2 kg/mm 2) - for amber from the Klesovsky deposit and Yazovsky occurrence. The average hardness of amber from the Primorsky deposit is 28.9 kg/mm 2. The hardness of amber successively increases from opaque through translucent to transparent varieties. The hardest are transparent ambers. Hardness depends on many reasons. The main ones are the composition of amber and the content of impurity elements in it. The more of the latter, mainly iron, the higher the hardness. With increasing load, an abnormal increase in hardness is observed. This is explained by the peculiarities of the internal structure of amber, in particular their viscosity. The viscosity of Baltic amber is 5⋅10 -8 poise at 200° C. Specific impact strength is 1.12-2.0 kg/cm 2 .

The degree of hardness of amber is affected by its fragility. It is characterized by a brittleness number - the load at which the first visible crack appears. Unaltered amber from deposits and occurrences in the Baltic states and Ukraine has a fragility number of more than 200 g. The weathering crust, which contains more chemical elements compared to unaltered amber, is characterized by a fragility number of 50 g.

Amber is often fissured. Cracks can be primary, which are formed during the process of fossilization of amber, and secondary, which arise during tectonic stress of amber-containing deposits and as a result of oxidation of amber. Cracks are sometimes healed with later amber. As a rule, healing amber is noticeably lighter than the entire piece of amber.

Separateness is often observed in amber. It is associated with the form of amber release, various types of cracks and oxidation. In pieces with a sinter-shell and sinter-slop structure, it manifests itself in their splitting into curved plates. In cracked pieces, especially with an intersecting system of cracks, the individual chips have the shape of a rhombus with an uneven surface of the sides. In weathered amber, separation is expressed by the splitting of the weathered part into many slightly curved plates (scales).

Amber, as an amorphous substance, usually has conchoidal and semiconchoidal fracture. Dense ambers - transparent, bastard, cloudy - have a coarse shell-like fracture, bone ambers have a flat, even fracture, foam ambers have an uneven, earthy, and less often splintered fracture. The fracture plane is rarely clean. It is usually complicated by various figures formed by thin lines.

Amber takes polish well. Only after polishing is the true beauty of the stone revealed, placing it above any of the artificial materials. Compared to untreated amber, polished amber is slightly darker. Amber has embalming properties.

The weight of amber pieces varies - from fractions of a gram to several kilograms. Large pieces of amber are found only in the Baltic states and Ukraine. The largest pieces of amber were found in the second half of the 19th century: one, weighing 12 kg, in Prussia (it was valued at 25 thousand francs), another, weighing 9.7 kg, in Pomerania. At the end of the last century, a piece of amber weighing about 7 kg was found on the shores of the Baltic Sea. A piece of amber weighing 6750 g, 37 cm long, 21 cm wide and 14 cm thick was exhibited in the Museum of the University of Konigsberg. It was valued at 30 thousand marks. A unique find of amber weighing 4280 g is kept in the museum at the Kaliningrad Amber Factory. The Amber Museum in Palanga displays a specimen whose weight exceeds 2 kg.

On the banks of the Dnieper they found a piece of amber “five inches in size” (22 cm). In 1977, two nuggets of amber were discovered in the Lviv region: one was wedge-shaped (length 31 cm, width 22 cm, height 15 and 20 cm) and weighed 6 kg, and the second resembled a huge peach pit. Its length is 20 cm, width 15.5 cm, height about 10 cm, weight 1270 g.

In the Ciscarpathian region, the thickness of the weathering crust on amber is 4 mm; in the Baltics, its value rarely reaches a few millimeters, usually only tenths of a millimeter. It should be noted that the thickness of the crust largely depends on the location of the sample. Amber extracted from the ground has a thicker, rougher crust and is broken up by a large number of polygonal areas limited by cracks. Amber exposed to sea waves is much thinner, sometimes barely noticeable, light, transparent, without polygons or cracks.

Compared to unaltered amber, the newly formed crust can be either darker or lighter. Greenish-colored ambers (light and dark green) turn into white varieties when oxidized. This change came not only from the surface, but throughout the entire piece. The white crust can be solid or cracked. Both of them are sometimes covered with a brown coating, which seems to protect the amber from further weathering.

Among the amber collected on the coast of the Curonian Spit, there were pieces of unchanged amber without a visible weathering crust, but as if softened from the surface. “Soft” amber has a denser color than unaltered hard amber. As with oxidation, the surface of “soft” amber is divided into many hexagonal mounds, closely adjacent to each other. Hexagons are very small (hundredths of a millimeter), almost invisible to the naked eye.

Weathered amber differs in composition and properties from unaltered amber. When weathering in amber, the content of carbon, hydrogen and partly sulfur decreases and the amount of oxygen increases. The nitrogen content remains approximately constant. In some cases, weathered amber has a slightly higher density (1.17-1.2 g/cm3) compared to unaltered amber. Weathered amber melts at a lower temperature.

During the oxidation process, amber becomes more fragile and fissured, and it begins to appear distinct. Its optical properties also change.