Glessit
Glessit is a type of amber that was described by Otto Helm in 1881 . Glessite was found as an accessory component in the Baltic amber (succinite), both in mined and washed up on the Baltic coasts. The name was changed from Otto helmet "derived from the words glessum (alias Glaesum) as claimed Tacitus the Aestyer ( aesti ) amber called". He had only 20 finds for the description. Since then, no new discoveries have been made from Samland , in more recent publications mainly only the information from Helm was cited. New finds of the Bitterfeld amber deposit were only described from 1986 and other sites are only known from the Lausitz .
Otto Helm identified the Glessit as a “peculiar flintstone-colored resin”, the color of the pieces at hand varied between red-brown and translucent and brown to black-brown and opaque. It differs markedly from succinite by its structure of spherical cell-like structures, at 100x magnification smaller round cell bodies can be seen in it. Glessite is a little softer than succinite, its Mohs hardness is 2.0. It behaves similarly to succinite towards organic solvents, but it does not contain succinic acid . Otto Helm already suspected that it was a fossil "rubber resin" and that it was used as a producer plant e.g. B. the myrrh (family of the balsam tree plants / Burseraceae) would come into question.
More than 250 pieces come from the Bitterfeld amber deposit, the variability of the appearance is much greater than in the Otto Helm collection. Some new descriptions in the 1990s concentrated mainly on color differences and less on structure. So were z. B. Color "variants" removed, but the striking structural differences to the amber type Bitterfeldite are not taken into account.
After the reworking, the Glessit is very brittle and soft, moderately easy to polish, electrostatically active and a characteristic feature is the weak aromatic smell. As with succinite, the original plant produced two resin forms , but these were not completely miscible. In the brownish-black to brownish-red variety Klar, the base mass is fine-grained, spherical (grain size <0.01 mm) with a very fuzzy border. The rarer yellowish-gray-brown and softer opaque variety often borders on the clear variety with a mixing zone or is enclosed in the clear resin as an inset. With the opaque variety, spheroidal inclusions of the clear resin can often be observed. The most common is a mixture of both variants, gray pieces with a high proportion of opaque specks in the clear resin. The size of the insects fluctuates, often in the same piece, very strongly from 0.05 to 15 mm. The Einsprenglinge are spherical, in pieces with a flowing texture elongated to tubular. Larger opaque speckles contain very small spherical deposits made of clear resin and, conversely, larger clear speckles contain opaque droplets. The weathering bark of the clear variety is lighter than the core, usually only thin and firmly adhering. In the mixed form, a thin and firmly adhering deep dark brown bark forms in the initial stage of weathering. With more severe weathering, the resin of the sprinkles is broken down to a black, crumbly mass.
Gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric investigations support Otto Helm's assumption that the plant of origin could belong to the balsam tree family (Burseraceae). According to other authors, however, it could belong to the birch family (Betulaceae).
It is also uncertain whether the fossil resin known as Scheibeit, which was found in the Golpa opencast mine near Bitterfeld in 1906, is Glessit.
According to the results of infrared spectroscopic investigations , fossil resins found on the island of Borneo show a high degree of agreement with Glessit.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Otto Helm: Mittheilungen über Bernstein.- III. Glessit . In: Writings of the Natural Research Society in Danzig NF , Volume 5, Danzig 1881, pages 291–293 (online)
- ^ Roland Fuhrmann, Rolf Borsdorf: The amber types of the Lower Miocene of Bitterfeld. In: Journal for Applied Geology , Volume 32, Berlin 1986, pages 309-316, PDF .
- ↑ Wilfried Sauer: The amber deposits in the Lausitz. In: Michael Ganzelewski, Rainer Slotta (ed.): Bernstein - Tränen der Götter , Bochum 1996, ISBN 3-921533-57-0 , pages 133-138.
- ^ Günter Krumbiegel : Glessit, a tertiary resin from Bedecktsamern . In: Fossilien , Volume 10, Issue 2, Korb 1993, pages 83-90
- ↑ Günter Krumbiegel, Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz: Bitterfeld amber types and variants compared to other deposits (status of the investigations 2004) . In: Excursion guide and publications of the German Society for Geosciences , Issue 224, Berlin 2004, pages 47–59.
- ^ Roland Fuhrmann: The bitter fields amber. In: Mauritiana , Volume 21, Altenburg 2010, ISSN 0233-173X , pages 13-58, PDF .
- ↑ Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz, Günter Krumbiegel, Norbert Vavra: Glessit, a tertiary resin from angiosperms of the Burseraceae family . In: New Yearbook for Geology and Palaeontology, Abhandlungen , Volume 187, Issue 3, Stuttgart 1993, pages 299-324.
- ^ Norbert Vávra: Chemistry of the Baltic and Bitterfeld amber: methods, possibilities, results . In: Excursion guides and publications of the German Society for Geosciences , Issue 236, Hanover 2008, ISBN 978-3-936617-86-3 , pages 69–76
- ^ S. Yamamoto, A. Otto, G. Krumbiegel, BRT Simoneit (2006): The natural product biomarkers in succinite, glessite and stantienite ambers from Bitterfeld, Germany . In: Review of Palaebotany and Palynology , Volume 140, Issue 1/2, Elsevier 2006, pages 27-49.
- ↑ Otto von Linstow: The geological conditions of Bitterfeld and the surrounding area (carbon, porphyry, kaolinization process, tertiary, quaternary) . In: New yearbook for mineralogy, geology and palaeontology , 33rd supplement, Stuttgart 1912, pages 754-830
- ↑ Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz & Janusz Fudala: Fossil resin or copal from Sabah? In Bursztynisko 26, Danzig 2006. Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
