Amber desires them all over the world as jewelry and a vessel for prehistoric residues, with more rare samples maintaining ancient water, air bubbles, plants, insects or even birds.
Usually Amber has been formed for millions of years when tree resin is fossilized, but paleontologists accelerated it and created fossils similar to amber from pine resin in 24 hours. This technique could help reveal Amber biochemistry, as it works, which is a process that would otherwise remain hidden in the fog of prehistory.
Posted on Monday in The Journal Scientific ReportsThe results of the experiment with rapid fossilization resemble a meal made in a pressure cooker. “It is similar to Instapot,” said Evan Saitta, a researcher in the Field Museum in Chicago and co -author of the contribution.
The recipe for synthetic amber began with pine resin from the Botanical Garden in Chicago. Dr. Saitta and his co -author, Thomas Kaye, an independent paleontologist, placed half -inch sediments discs in which the resin was built into Mr. Kay’s facility built using compressor pills, air canis, and other captivated parts.
By heating and pressure on the samples, scientists tried to simulate the diagnosis, slow, wet physical and chemical transformation needed before the sediment consolidation on the rock.
“Diagnosis is the final obstacle you need to go through to become fossils,” Dr. Saitta. “It’s the kind of the last boss.”
Some samples produced by scientists were imperfect, but several armed physical properties such as darkened color, fracture lines, dehydration and increased shine.
They also realized that they started with the wrong pine family. Amber the most commonly studied in paleontology is Sciadopitys, a group of trees whose Only a living relative is the Japanese umbrella pine.
Maria McNamara, a paleontology at the University College Cork in Ireland, who did not participate in the study, said future experiments should test other types of plants.
“What we really want to get to is the resin polymerizing faster,” she said. She also pointed out that the chemical analysis of the accelerated amber was necessary to know how close – or not – it was for real things. “The tree resin has survived, but we need the right, full chemical characterization,” she said.
For all restrictions on Dr. McNamera said that simulated fossilization was an increasingly important area of research. Some paleontologists re -created The break -up of bones or tissue Explore the microbial effects. Scientists have in their laboratory “Thermally mature samples Examine the preservation of biological molecules under the heat.
Without such simulations: “We just trust a fossil record,” she said. “Experiments help us tell us the fact of fiction and determine to what extent the fossil record lies.”
Dr. Saitta tried other simulations. In 2018 buried Finch In the wet sediment to see how it would be compacted. That was dirty and unsuccessful. But after working with Mr. Kaye on the pressure cooking facility, they had more success in the study of earlier fossilization phases Leaves, feathers and lizards. For example, with these specimens, keratin leached in feathers and left a dark imprint similar to melanin similar to fossilized feathers. (Dr. Saitta said at the conferences, he likes to test other paleontologists to notice a visual difference between the simulant and the real fossil.)
In the future Amber experiments, Dr. Saitta focuses on the insertion of insects, feathers or plants into the resin. One of the reasons why this could prove useful is that real specimens are valuable – some thousands of dollars – which makes destructive analysis impracticable. “Canned insects in a synthetic amber would not be rare because it would be made of a laboratory,” Dr. Saitta.
Scientists also plan to adapt their technique to the decaying organic pressure cooking material and simulate geological weathering. This would more realistically capture more fossilization phases.
Looking forward, experimental fossilization techniques can even allow scientists to explore the future of the future, said Dr. Saitta. How will the fossilized life of anthropocene be? What would happen to tissues or bones filled with microplastic or industrial heavy metals?
We will not be millions of years since now to find out. But with a device similar to pressure cooking, we can approach.
