Amber is the common name for fossil resin. It occurs in different colours, and is widely used for making jewellery and other ornaments. Although not mineralized, amber is sometimes considered as a gemstone.

Most of the world's amber is in the range of 30–90 million years old. Semi-fossilized resin or sub-fossil amber is called copal. Baltic amber was called 'Freya's tears' by the Norse and the 'tears of the Heliades' by the ancient Greeks.

Amber consists of several resinous bodies that can mostly dissolve in alcohol, ether and chloroform, associated with a bituminous substance that does not dissolve.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Amber.
Poinar, George O. (1992). Life in amber. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2001-0. OCLC 24247184.
Langenheim, Jean (2003). Plant Resins: Chemistry, Evolution, Ecology, and Ethnobotany. Timber Press Inc. ISBN 0-88192-574-8.
Scientist: Frog could be 25 million years old
"How Products Are Made: Amber". Archived from the original on 2007-08-11. Retrieved 2007-07-17.
Patty C. Rice (15 September 2006). Amber: Golden Gem of the Ages. Patty Rice. pp. 22ff. ISBN 978-1-4259-3849-9. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
Wolfe, Alexander P.; Tappert, Ralf; Muehlenbachs, Karlis; Boudreau, Marc; McKellar, Ryan C.; Basinger, James F.; Garrett, Amber (2009-10-07). "A new proposal concerning the botanical origin of Baltic amber". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 276 (1672): 3403–3412. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0806. PMC 2817186. PMID 19570786.
Poinar, George O. (1999). The amber forest : a reconstruction of a vanished world. Roberta Poinar. Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN 0-691-02888-5. OCLC 39380150.
"Baltic Amber - Autoclave Treatment". The Fossil Forum. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
"DR1.com - Dominican Republic News & Travel Information Service". dr1.com. Retrieved 2022-04-25.