Fossil Resins

Reports the state of the art in chemical studies of ambers, including structural characterization, isotopic composition, maturation studies, resinite derived oils, and amino acid distributions. Discusses aspects of the biological, geological, petrology, and technology of fossil resins. Presents a diverse summary of the current knowledge of the nature and properties of fossil resins.

Baltic amber fascinates thousands of tourists who come to the Baltic Sea. Small children and their parents are eager to bury the sand while looking for precious resin. It is not easy to find, and every large piece of amber found in the “cucumber season” makes headlines. Another category of amber hunters are professionals. These are people who make a living from extracting amber of jewelry value, because each piece of fossilized resin has quite a lot of value. This group is quite hermetic, and the places and methods of extraction remain in the sphere of understatement and are shrouded in a certain mystery. The aforementioned group is particularly interested in the uniqueness of Baltic amber, created by “ancient” rivers, that was already traded by Persians, Vikings and Mycenaeans. From this group, wonderful jewelry products are created. In this book, however, I deal with another aspect of Baltic amber. The initial idea was to analyze the knowledge of this fossilized resin in various aspects. The difficulty in getting to know amber is related to the multidimensionality of the issue. The problem is that science likes to specialize to be precise. This, however, limits knowledge of the issue of amber. If we deal with the question of the formation of the resin, we touch upon issues in the field of geology. This field is enough to fill many years of research and work of a scientist. You can look back a hundred thousand years ago, or into the past millions of years or tens of millions of years, which means that we delve into such vast knowledge that the life of one person may be too short to study the issue well.Then, what do we find in amber? Insects. Thousands of insects. Every geological epoch, each geological era means different families and different species of preserved insects, all of which are to be obtained, dissected, and described in scientific articles. Again, work for a lifetime, infinitely long, because we reach millions of years into the past, and not even in one specific place on the planet – we need to look through the entire planet, because it has been changing over millions of years. What about the plants? After all, they created succinite at different stages of development. What were they like? Are those plants we know today the same ones that existed millions of years ago? Further, some species have become extinct, some have evolved, some grow today in China and others in New Zealand or New Caledonia. Then there is chemistry, the compounds found in amber… Terpenes have already been counted; 40,000. And they can be found in amber. Maybe not in that number, but – since amber was found in peat, brown coal, surrounded by minerals, sediments, and rocks – it could have absorbed the catalog of chemical compounds occurring in the world of plants, trees and shrubs, and also essential oils.

This is the first single book to cover the whole of the fossil history of insects so comprehensively. The volume embraces subjects from the history of insect palaeontology to the diagnostic features of all insect orders, both extant and extinct.

Analytical Archaeometry describes this interesting and challenging field of research - on the border between natural sciences (chemistry, spectroscopy, biology, geology) and humanities (archaeology, (art-)history, conservation sciences). It fills the gap between these two areas whilst focussing on the analytical aspects of this research field. The first part of the book studies the main analytical techniques used in this research field. The second part expands from the different types of materials usually encountered, and the final part is organised around a series of typical research questions. The book is not only focussed on archaeological materials, but is also accessible to a broader lay audience. Overall the book is clearly structured and gives insight into different approaches to the study of analytical providing extensive discussion on a wide range of techniques, materials, questions and applications. Due to the advances in analytical instrumentation and applications in this field, it is important to have all this information merged together. Academics as well as professionals in archaeology, art history, museum labs and conservation science will find this an invaluable reference source ensuring the reader is provided with the latest progress in this research field.

This volume has been prepared as a reference guide for all engineering, industrial and technical management personnel who are in any way involved in the manufacturing process, in product design, or in converting of raw materials to finished products. This Encyclopedic Dictionary covers a wide range of subjects from industrial materials, minerals, metals, plastics and synthetic fibers to machine tools, computers, lasers, robots and other production equipment as well as manufacturing processes. Some of the materials reviewed are brass, steel, nickel, copper, bronze, cast iron, cements, clay, coal, coke, petroleum and petrochemicals, glass, limestone, rubber, paper, metal alloys, chemicals, synthetic fibers, textiles, plastics, resins, lubricants, and thermoplastics. Various processes are reviewed such as metal casting, forming, machining, anneal ing, extrusion, heat treating, injection molding, papermaking and steel processing. In heat treating such areas as martempering, annealing, spheroidizing, tempering and austempering are included. Different types of equipment related to the products are defined. In plastics such pro ducts are covered as nylons, polyesters, rayons, Teflon, Vinyon, Saran, acetates and acrylics. Many of the manufacturing processes and equipment involved in the conversion of material to finished products are described along with products and their ultimate uses. Also, important associated manufacturing activities such as inspection, handling, and control are included to make the references as complete as is practicable.