Whilst on the Baltic Capitals cruise, we got to learn about a precious mineral found in the forests and oceans of the Baltic coastal countries: Amber.

This lecture was riveting for me. Ever since I was little, I would collect rocks, much to my parents’ dismay. What parent wants to come home from a trip with a pound of gray and black pebbles? At the time, I thought they were beautiful and I loved that no two rocks were the same. The older I got, I was able to appreciate where they came from. Oh, that dark, glassy rock is called obsidian and it used to be lava. Ah that cool red rock with white veins is marble, and so on.

I am a rock nerd.

Specifically, though, I love to learn about precious stones and minerals, and even though Amber isn’t a stone, I was still excited to learn more about it.

Also, who wouldn’t want to learn about how realistic Jurassic Park really is?

Here’s a few facts about amber:

1. Contrary to popular belief, Amber is not a rock or made from tree sap. Amber is made from tree resin. As the lecturer explained, resin is the substance a tree produces when it is cut or is “infected”. Resin is reddish, and it’s hard to the touch, unlike sap, which is yellowish and sticky. Amber is fossilized resin.
2. Amber used to be laying around in the Baltic Sea’s beaches – residue from forests that are now beneath the water and along the coast. People could often find it in the sand, much like mussel shells or sand dollars. However, if you found it, you had to report it to your government, and it was illegal to keep it. In Russia, amber was so coveted that in the 18^th century, the king decided that he wanted to give his wife, Sophie, the ultimate gift – a room made entirely of amber (now called the Amber Room). This room – which was restored after World War II – is now estimated to be worth over 500 million dollars
3. Yes, bugs do get trapped in amber, and yes, those bugs include mosquitoes. Those mosquitoes are fossilized with the resin, so they are well preserved. Sometimes, they contain the DNA of the last animal they fed off of, and that has included dinosaur blood. So far so good, Jurassic Park. However, you can’t use that DNA to create dinosaurs – sorry avid dinosaur fans. I think it’s for the best, really.
4. Amber comes in a variety of colors: Deep green (from resin that was tinted by moss or grass), Butterscotch (the oldest pieces), light yellow (the classic color most people associate amber with), red-orange, and everything in between those colors.
5. We came across a lot of souvenir shops in Estonia and Russia that sold amber to poorly informed tourists – not us, this time. There are a few ways to tell whether the amber you’re purchasing is real or not. The simplest is done by rubbing amber with a piece of cloth and holding it close to a thin napkin or someone’s hair. Amber can be statically charged, so it should at least cause the napkin or the hair to move.

It was crazy to see how much of what we learned in the lecture kept coming up on our trip. The coastal countries are truly filled with amber shops – not all legitimate, unfortunately. So, next time you find yourself in this region, you can use the handy dandy test I mentioned above – or even if you have amber at home you’d like to test out!