Amber Coast
Encyclopedia
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
in the northwest of Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea...
(Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea...
Oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
, Sambia
Sambia
Sambia or Samland is a peninsula in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. The Curonian Lagoon and the Vistula Lagoon demarcate the peninsula. Prior to 1945 it formed an important part of East Prussia.-Names:Sambia is named after the Sambians, an extinct...
Peninsula). In this area amber
Amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin , which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents...
(Baltic amber
Baltic amber
The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber or succinite, with about 80% of the world's known amber found there. It dates from 44 million years ago...
) has been excavated since the mid-19th century and up to today in open-pit mining.
History
Scientists believe that amber was deposited during the Upper Eocene and Lower Oligocene in a deltaRiver delta
A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...
of a prehistoric river, in a shallow part of a marine basin. In addition to the coast near Kaliningrad, amber is also found elsewhere in the Baltic Sea region. The deposits are found mostly in the "blue earth glauconite
Glauconite
Glauconite is an iron potassium phyllosilicate mineral of characteristic green color with very low weathering resistance and very friable.It crystallizes with a monoclinic geometry...
", a layer 1 to 17.5 meters thick found 25 to 40 meters from the surface. In addition to the Sambia region, amber is gathered in noticeable amounts at German, Polish and Lithuanian Baltic beaches (areas of the Bay of Gdańsk as well as the Vistula Lagoon
Vistula Lagoon
The Vistula Lagoon is a fresh water lagoon on the Baltic Sea separated from Gdańsk Bay by the Vistula Spit. It is sometimes known as the Vistula Bay or Vistula Gulf. The modern German name, Frisches Haff, is derived from an earlier form, Friesisches Haff. Both this term and the earlier Polish...
), the western coast of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and the Frisian Islands
Frisian Islands
The Frisian Islands, also known as the Wadden Islands or Wadden Sea Islands, form an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea in northwestern Europe, stretching from the north-west of the Netherlands through Germany to the west of Denmark...
. Small amounts of Baltic amber can even be found outside the Baltic region, for example on the coastline of the south east of England.
However, about 90% to 98% of all output of amber has been produced in the Sambia region (now a Russian exclave, formerly in Eastern Prussia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
). The Sambian amber-producing region is a square of about 30–40 km (20–25 miles), although geologists estimate there are deposits beyond the region of the main excavations. A potential nearby source of amber is the Courish Lagoon. Amber excavation is overseen by the Russian Amber Company (Ruskij Jantar).
The Amber Coast is mentioned as early as by Tacitus in his work Germania.
Other uses
Another coastal strip referred to as “amber coast” is the Costa de Ambar (also known as “Costambar”) in the west of Puerto Plata (HispaniolaHispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
, Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
). In this area there are a number of small shaft mines, from which is excavated the so called “Dominican amber
Dominican amber
Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic. Resin from the extinct species Hymenaea protera is the source of Dominican amber and probably of most amber found in the tropics....
”. The Dominican amber production site is the world's second largest, although compared to the Baltic region it is "a distant second".