Discovering the Mysteries of Amber by George O. Poinar Jr.

Discovering the Mysteries of Amber  by George O. Poinar Jr.

The mysteries of amber are covered in this short booklet as we pass through pages that explain what is amber, how is it formed, where does it occur and what type of plats produced this wonderful gem. The scientific value of amber is demonstrated through color photographs of extinct animals and plats that lived million os of year ago in a long-gone tropical forest in the Dominican Republic.

Learn about Amber in this booklet! 

George Poinar began collecting amber specimins over thirty years ago, but it was only recently that he, Roberta Poinar, and the rest of his research team astounded the scientific community with the news that they had obtained "live" DNA strands from an insect over 40 million years old. The news was so significant that it made headlines throughout the world. Since that time, their lab has remained extraordinarily active, and in the summer of 1993, they were able to announce the successful extraction of preserved DNA strands over 125 million years old. Thus, there is now DNA available for study dating from the early dinosaur period.

After working at the University of California, Berkeley for over 30 years, the Poinars relocated to Corvallis, Oregon where Dr. Poinar is Professor in the Entomology Department at Oregon State University.