Trading Away Ancient Amber's Secrets

Feb 26, 2016 | Shuo Wang, Chao Shi, Yun-jiao Zhang, Guo-xiong Hu and Li-zhi Gao
View Original

In the swamps of North Myanmar lies some of the oldest stone in the world. Burmese amber (burmite) is more than 100 million years old (1,2). Unlike more recent ambers from the Baltic Sea (3), Dominica (4), and India (5), burmite formed in the early Cretaceous period, when the first flowering plants were beginning to grow and major tectonic shifts were changing the positions of the continents. About 1% of burmite holds biological inclusions such as insects, plants, and fungi that have been sealed in and thus incredibly preserved. Burmite inclusions have served as the first fossil record of several species (6-8) and play an irreplaceable role in our understanding of the early evolution of animals and plants.