{"id":24542,"date":"2025-03-24T12:54:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T13:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24542"},"modified":"2025-03-24T14:24:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T14:24:48","slug":"you-can-make-amber-fossils-in-24-hours-instead-of-millions-of-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24542","title":{"rendered":"You Can Make Amber Fossils in 24 Hours, Instead of Millions of Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Paleontologists hope that an amber-like material, made with living tree resin, will shed light on the prehistoric fossilization of the real stuff.<\/p>\n

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Amber is coveted the world over as both jewelry and a vessel for prehistoric remnants, with rarer specimens preserving ancient water, air bubbles, plants<\/a>, insects<\/a> or even birds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Typically, amber forms over millions of years as tree resin fossilizes, but paleontologists have sped that up, creating amber-like fossils from pine resin in 24 hours. The technique could help reveal the biochemistry of amber as it forms, a process that otherwise would remain hidden in the fog of prehistory.<\/p>\n

Published on Monday in the journal Scientific Reports<\/a>, the results of the fast-fossilization experiment are akin to a meal made in a pressure cooker. \u201cIt\u2019s similar to an Instapot,\u201d said Evan Saitta, a research associate at the Field Museum in Chicago and co-author of the paper.<\/p>\n

The recipe for synthetic amber started with pine resin from the Chicago Botanic Garden. Dr. Saitta and his co-author, Thomas Kaye, an independent paleontologist, placed half-inch sediment disks in which the resin was embedded in a device Mr. Kaye built using a medical pill compressor, air canisters and other scavenged parts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By both heating and pressuring the samples, the researchers were trying to simulate diagenesis, the slow, wet physical and chemical transformation required before sediment consolidates into rock.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiagenesis is the ultimate hurdle you need to pass to become a fossil,\u201d Dr. Saitta said. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of the final boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Paleontologists hope that an amber-like material, made with living tree resin, will shed light on the prehistoric fossilization of the real stuff.Amber is coveted the world over as both jewelry and a vessel for prehistoric remnants, with rarer specimens preserving ancient water, air bubbles, plants, insects or even birds.Typically, amber forms over millions of years as tree resin fossilizes, but paleontologists have sped that up, creating amber-like fossils from pine resin in 24 hours. The technique could help reveal the biochemistry of amber as it forms, a process that otherwise would remain hidden in the fog of prehistory.Published on Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, the results of the fast-fossilization experiment are akin to a meal made in a pressure cooker. \u201cIt\u2019s similar to an Instapot,\u201d said Evan Saitta, a research associate at the Field Museum in Chicago and co-author of the paper.The recipe for synthetic amber started with pine resin from the Chicago Botanic Garden. Dr. Saitta and his co-author, Thomas Kaye, an independent paleontologist, placed half-inch sediment disks in which the resin was embedded in a device Mr. Kaye built using a medical pill compressor, air canisters and other scavenged parts.By both heating and pressuring the samples, the researchers were trying to simulate diagenesis, the slow, wet physical and chemical transformation required before sediment consolidates into rock.\u201cDiagenesis is the ultimate hurdle you need to pass to become a fossil,\u201d Dr. Saitta said. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of the final boss.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24544,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24545,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24542\/revisions\/24545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}