Add your Article
- Dinosaurs and Fossils
- Dino Flesh from Fossil Bone
- A Big, Weird Dino
- Mammals in the Shadow of Dinosaurs
- E Learning Jamaica
- E Learning in Jamaica WIN PRIZES and try our Fun Animated Games
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- Earth
- Slower Growth, Greater Warmth
- Salty, Old and, Perhaps, a Sign of Early Life
- What is groundwater
- GSAT Exam Preparation Jamaica
- Scotiabank Jamaica Foundation Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) Scholarships
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- How are students placed after passing the GSAT exam
- GSAT Exams Jamaica Scholarships
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- Access denied - Disabled boy aces GSAT
- GSAT Scholarship
- GSAT Mathematics
- Prime Time for Cicadas
- GSAT Mathematics Quiz, Teaching Math, teaching anxiety
- A Sweet Advance in Candy Packing
- Human Body
- Prime Time for Broken Bones
- Sea Kids See Clearly Underwater
- Spitting Up Blobs to Get Around
A Rainforest Trapped in Amber
Published: 07/01/2010
A group of paleontologists has found gold in the western Amazon. No, not the type of gold that’s made into jewelry or coins. Instead, the fossil-hunting scientists discovered ancient, gold-colored rocks that have tiny plants and insects trapped inside.
These fossilized plants and animals are valuable because they provide the best evidence yet that rainforests existed in the western part of the Amazon basin as long as 15 million years ago.
Barely a millimeter long, this fly was trapped in amber, the hardened resin of ancient trees, more than 10 million years ago.
Dario De Franceschi The researchers estimate that the little flies, gnats, and other bugs found in the amber became trapped 10 to 15 million years ago. At that time, sticky resin from trees covered the insects, along with plant pollen, fungi, and other tiny organisms. The resin hardened into amber and became lodged in layers of rock. The scientists found 28 of these gold-colored nuggets during their search near the Amazon River in northeastern Peru.
Covered with dirt, this piece of amber from Peru contains the fossils of tiny animals and plants.
© PNAS After they dug up the rocks, the paleontologists used microscopes to study the trapped fossils. In this way, they didn’t have to crack open the rocks and risk damaging the ancient plants and insects.
The researchers found that the fossils came from types of plants and insects that normally live in a rainforest. So, the fossils provide direct evidence that a rainforest existed in that area more than 10 million years ago.—E. Jaffe
A Rainforest Trapped in Amber
