Biodiversity of Fossils in Amber from the Major World Deposits PDF Download

Author: David Penney
Publisher: Siri Scientific Press
ISBN: 0955863643
Category : Amber fossils
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Author: George O. Poinar
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804720014
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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"Amber is a semi-precious gem that is formed over eons by natural forces out of the resin of trees. Human fascination with amber dates back to prehistoric times, when it was probably considered to have magical powers and was used for adornment and trade. Amber amulets and beads dating from 35,000 to 1,800 B.C. have been found, and where they have been found (for example in graves hundreds of miles from their chemically determined origins) has often helped to establish ancient trade routes." "The preservative qualities of plant resins were well known by the ancients. The Egyptians used resins to embalm their dead, and the Greeks used them to preserve their wine. Amber often preserved fossils, frequently in a pristine state, of all kinds of animal and plant organisms that made contact with the sticky substance and became trapped in it. These fossils include such fragile organisms as nematodes and mushrooms that ordinarily are not preserved under normal processes of fossilization, as well as larger organisms like scorpions and lizards, and the fossils are preserved in their full three-dimensional form, complete with minute details of scales, mouth parts, antennae, and hairs. It has even been suggested that viable DNA may persist in some amber-trapped organisms." "This book is a compendium of all that we know about life found in amber. It surveys all life forms, from microbes to vertebrates and plants, that have been reported from amber deposits throughout the world, beginning with the earliest pieces dating from some 300 million years ago. It also describes the formation of amber and the location, geological history, and early exploration of the major world amber deposits, including those still being worked today." "The book also provides practical information on how to determine fake amber containing present-day forms of life. It can serve as a beginning for tracing the geological history of a particular group of animals or plants or even reconstructing ancient paleoenvironments, and because amber fossils are preserved so completely, in a transparent medium, they can be intimately compared with related living species. Finally, the book discusses what amber fossils can tell us about evolution and speciation, cellular preservation, and paleosymbiosis." "The book is illustrated with 37 color photographs, 154 black-and-white photographs and drawings, and 8 maps."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Author: George O. Poinar
Publisher: Princeton Univ Department of Art &
ISBN: 9780691028880
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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The Poinars are world leaders in the study of amber fossils and have spent years examining the uniquely rich supply that has survived from the ancient forests of the Dominican Republic. They draw on their research here to reconstruct in words, drawings, and spectacular color photographs the ecosystem that existed on the island of Hispaniola between fifteen and forty-five million years ago. The Poinars present richly detailed drawings of how the forests once appeared. They discuss how and when life colonized Hispaniola and what caused some forms to become extinct. Along the way, they describe how amber is formed, how and where it has been preserved, and how it is mined, sold, and occasionally forged for profit today.

Author: George Poinar
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Longman
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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In passages that read more like an Indiana Jones screenplay than scientific research, the Poinars describe how their hobby-turned-obsession ultimately led to a breakthrough scientific finding: the discovery of preserved insect DNA in amber. Photos.

Author: David A. Grimaldi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789057820601
Category : Amber fossils
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Author: David Penney
Publisher: Siri Scientific Press
ISBN: 095586366X
Category : Amber fossils
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Author: Christina Bisulca
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Amber
Languages : en
Pages : 19

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The deterioration of fossil resins (crazing, cracking, and darkening) was investigated by comparing the effects of one year of accelerated aging--specifically intensive exposure to light, heat, and fluctuating humidity, both individually and in combination--on samples from several natural resin deposits. These included two Cretaceous ambers (from Myanmar (Burma) and central New Jersey), two Tertiary ambers (from the Baltic and the Dominican Republic), and Holocene copal from Zanzibar. The five resins were chosen for their disparate ages and botanical origins (and thus chemical and physical properties), as well as their paleontological significance. In all cases, pronounced deterioration occurred under combined exposure to light and fluctuating humidity, based on surface crazing and a decrease in absorbance of light in the UV region (360-400 nm). While crazing did not visibly occur in cases of fluctuating humidity in dark conditions, or UV exposure alone, spectrophotometric evidence indicates that some deterioration did take place. Yellowing after exposure to elevated temperatures occurred in all samples tested, with the exception of Burmese amber. All four true ambers exhibited a decrease in UV absorbance after exposure to heat (while copal actually showed an increase). The samples from the five deposits represent three chemical subclasses of fossil resins, and each of the resins reacted differently to the various aging conditions, with New Jersey amber particularly unstable. Based on these results, amber collections should be stored in an environment with stable humidity, relatively low heat, and minimal exposure to light. Anoxic sealing and storage, and particularly embedding amber samples in a high-grade epoxy, may be beneficial, and further investigation is indicated.

Author: Pierre Francois Dominique Cockx
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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In order to reconstruct Cretaceous ecology and environments, this thesis investigates amber deposits in Myanmar and Western Canada, through chemical analyses of amber and study of the inclusions. As part of this work, I described a bird foot and a large series of feather inclusions from the amber of Myanmar. In the bird specimen, a series of osteological features and the morphology of the claws, support a systematic placement among Enantiornithes. I was able to describe delicate integumentary structures associated with the foot. This included scutellate scale feathers, a type of feather that has only been documented in Burmese amber specimens. Their distribution and relative size on the longest digit of the foot suggest a mechanosensory tactile function, and may allow us to draw parallels to some modern birds with tactile feathers on their feet. This finding strongly supports the longest digit acting as part of the feeding strategy of the bird, and fits well with previous interpretations of habitat use by enantiornithines. This dissertation demonstrates that even isolated vertebrate remains in amber are of high scientific interest. Through a detailed study of more than 180 Burmese amber samples preserving feathers, a diverse assemblage of Cretaceous feathers has been recovered. This provides the opportunity to document and investigate several structural types of feathers, ontogenetic stages, and pigmentation patterns. Based on recent work that associates feather types with skeletal remains, I was able to attribute many of the feathers to putative source animals. Although a few feathers may belong to non-avian dinosaur taxa, this survey confirmed earlier hypotheses that Enantiornithes were the dominant source of feathers in this ecosystem. The structure and pigmentation patterns reported added to larger-scale hypotheses regarding the groups present in the Cretaceous amber forest. One particular subset of ornamental feathers warranted detailed study because of its unusual structure. I determined that rachis-dominated feathers (RDFs) form a distinct morphotype characterized by a ventrally open rachis and a flexibility that was not documented previously. These results allow us to refine our evolutionary-developmental (evo-devo) models for integumentary structures in dinosaurs by providing additional data on structures preceding modern feathers. The structural features observed support a particular pathway for evolutionary development in feather subcomponents, addressing a major question in evo-devo models of feathers which have been based predominantly on modern material. A research deficit was addressed by focusing on Upper Cretaceous bonebed amber deposits of Western Canada. I established that amber can provide paleoecological, paleoenvironmental, paleoclimatic, and paleogeographic data, thus improving our knowledge of dinosaur habitats and their biota. Stable isotope analyses of amber refined our knowledge of the actual position and extant of the Western Interior Seaway (WIS) during the Late Cretaceous. A marine signal indicates the presence of remnants of the WIS near the deposits studied. Fourier-transform Infrared spectra showed that the dominant tree in the forests belonged to the Cupressaceae group. Feather fragments in Pipestone Creek amber, reveal the presence of aquatic birds (e.g., Hesperornithes and Ichthyornithes) 73 Ma, in Pachyrhinosaurus habitats. Insect inclusions yielded new species of Mymarommatidae wasp and Psocoptera which add to the fossil record and support the ecological interpretations based on amber chemistry. Ultimately, this line of research further supports paleoenvironmental hypotheses based on other sources of data. It also provided a new source of information on Cretaceous terrestrial habitats at high latitude, and a source for comparisons to other amber deposits during the latter part of the Cretaceous.

Author: David A. Grimaldi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Amber
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Author: David Penney
Publisher: Siri Scientific Press
ISBN: 095745306X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Palaeoentomology represents the interface between two huge scientific disciplines: palaeontology – the study of fossils, and entomology – the study of insects. However, fossils rarely feature extensively in books on insects, and likewise, insects rarely feature in books about fossils. Similarly, college or university palaeontology courses rarely have an entomological component and entomology courses do not usually consider the fossil record of insects in any detail. This is not due to a lack of insect fossils. The fossil record of insects is incredibly diverse in terms of taxonomic scope, age range (Devonian to Recent), mode of preservation (amber and rock) and geographical distribution (fossil insects have been recorded from all continents, including Antarctica). In this book the authors aim to help bridge the palaeontology–entomology gap by providing a broadly accessible introduction to some of the best preserved fossil insects from a wide range of deposits from around the globe, many of which are beautifully illustrated by colour photographs. Also covered are insect behaviour and ecology in the fossil record, sub-fossil insects, trace fossils and insect species longevity. Just as insects are useful as ecological indicators today, the same can be expected to be true of the past. Such applications of the insect fossil record are briefly discussed. It is hoped that this book will encourage a few future researchers to enter the fascinating realm of palaeoentomology and to this end there is a section on how to become a palaeoentomologist. However, it is aimed at a much broader audience – those with an interest in fossils and/or insects in general, who will no doubt marvel at the diversity and excellent preservation of the fossils illustrated.