It turns out that treasure hunting doesn’t always require traveling or digging. Instead, you can find a rock and use it as a door stop. That’s exactly what happened to an elderly Romanian woman – the rock that had served her as a door stop for decades turned out to be an ancient piece of amber worth a million euros. The woman found the 3.5-kilogram object in the bed of the Colti River, located in the southeast of the Eastern European country, and used it as a simple doorstop. Needless to say, even the robbers who stole the old woman’s jewelry paid no attention to it. The amber nugget, however, turned out to be incredibly valuable not only in monetary terms, but also in scientific terms – its age, according to experts, ranges from 38.5 to 70 million years.
An elderly woman in Romania has been using a piece of amber worth a million euros as a doorknob for decades. Image: futurism.com
Contents
- 1 A Precious Find
- 2 Amber Deposits in Romania
- 3 The Most Amazing Finds
- 3.1 Plague Flea
- 3.2 Spider and Wasp
- 3.3 Ancient Salamander
A Precious Find
The old woman who found one of the world's largest amber nuggets died in 1991. And if one of her relatives, who inherited the house, had not suspected that the stone might be valuable and had not sold it to the Romanian state, hardly anyone would have known about this story.
Fortunately, after the Romanian authorities handed over the nugget to Polish specialists in the study of semi-precious stones from the Historical Museum in Krakow, experts confirmed its value and authenticity, indicating that it is an extremely rare and ancient amber stone, estimated to be between 38.5 and 70 million years old.
The discovered nugget is of great importance both at the scientific and museum levels, Daniel Costache, director of the Buzau Provincial Museum, which now owns the stone, told Spain's El País.
The stone, which is of great scientific interest, may be between 38.5 and 70 million years old and is one of the largest in the world. Image: lavanguardia.com
When the old woman's relatives learned the shocking news, they told the media that the woman had even become a victim of a robbery, during which only a few inexpensive gold ornaments were stolen from her and the piece of amber was completely ignored. “In their frantic search for valuables, they overlooked the real treasure that was kept in the house and was right in front of them,” they said.
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Let us recall that amber is the fossilized remains of an ancient resin that has been considered valuable since the Neolithic period. Although amber is generally “cognac” in color, it can take on different colors and shades depending on the region and the substances contained in the resin. The color of amber mined in the Buzau region of Romania varies from red to black. It has been mined in this region since the 1920s.
Amber deposits in Romania
Romania is among the countries in the world that have significant amber deposits, and Buzau County is one of the areas where this semi-precious stone is found in abundance. “Because of the characteristics of the country's deposits, geologist Oscar Helm called them “rumanite” or «Buzau amber»«, notes the World Records Academy, the world's largest organization certifying records.
The region also has a nature reserve, where various amber nuggets have previously been discovered, which are of considerable value both from a qualitative and aesthetic point of view – amber in these areas has more than 160 shades of predominantly dark colors, from red to black.
Amber comes in yellow, blue, green, red, black and milky colors. Image: blogger.googleusercontent.com
Some of the amber nuggets found in the Romanian reserve contain so-called “inclusions” – the remains of arachnids, beetles, dipterans, crustaceans, reptiles, as well as bird feathers and animal fur. In addition, the protected area is home to the old Stramba amber mine – one of the most productive in the first half of the twentieth century. However, the authorities considered it unprofitable and soon closed it.
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The most amazing finds
Sometimes, even more amazing inclusions are found in amber. For example, collectors and scientists have found not only beetles, but also large animals such as lizards, frogs, and salamanders that are remarkably well preserved: skin, scales, fur, and feathers are just some of the incredibly detailed elements found in amber.
Amber, however, does not preserve DNA, so a scenario like “Jurassic Park” is simply impossible. Nevertheless, it is thanks to amber that scientists have discovered many small animals. There are a huge number of stones that are between 230 and 20 million years old!
Ancient mosquito stuck in amber. Image: newscientist.com
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Plague flea
One of the astonishing finds was described by George Poinar Jr. from the University of Oregon (USA). It turned out to be a suspicious-looking flea frozen in Dominican amber. Dominican amberalmost transparent and is considered one of the rarest in the world. It is obtained from the resin of the extinct tree Hymenaea protera.
Most Dominican amber preserves the remains of neotropical forests that existed in the region 25 to 20 million years ago. Amber is mostly found in yellow shades, although red and even blue are often mined in this area.
A flea with a 20-million-year-old plague bacterium. Image: nypost.com
While many insects have been found in Dominican amber before, the flea was unique in that it harbored the deadly plague microbiome. While it had long been thought that the plague beetle evolved into its current form much later, Poinar argued that the microbe may or may not be an ancestor of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis.
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Spider and Wasp
Predation among terrestrial arthropods is another incredible act that is often captured in amber. For example, a fossil of a spider and a wasp was found in the Hukawng Valley and was also scientifically described by amber expert and entomologist Dr. George Poinar Jr. He and Kentucky collector Ron Buckley published their study in the scientific journal Historical Biology in October 2012.
Spider eating wasp trapped in amber 100 million years ago. Image: nbcnews.com
In this amazing 100-million-year-old specimen, the spider is actively attacking the wasp, as seen in the image above. And while it may look like the hunt is in full swing, the unfortunate wasp was probably already in the spider's clutches when the sticky resin started to flow, drenching both hunter and prey.
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Ancient salamander
Today, salamanders are not found in the Caribbean. However, one has been preserved in a piece of amber from this area. The unfortunate creature, apparently, went through an extremely difficult period in its life before getting into the viscous resin – one of its legs was bitten off by a predator from the early Miocene, that is, about 20 million years ago.
An ancient legless salamander trapped in amber. Image: dailymail.co.uk
Poinar and his team, who studied the fossil, concluded that the salamander trapped in amber was an extinct species of Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae and was closely related to the many salamanders that inhabit the modern Appalachian Mountains. The discovery, described in the journal Paleodiversity, provides clues to how life evolved on these islands.