Accretionary Wedge #28- Desk-crops

October’s theme is going to be “Desk-crops.” This can be any rock or other geological* specimen that you have lying around your office/desk/lab that has a story to tell. The spookier the better. Photos and/or illustrations are very important (although not absolutely required). This is taken directly from Ron Schott’s “deskrcop series” of his rocks and such – great examples of what I had in mind with the theme (but not the only way to skin this horse).

The deadline is Friday, October 29… so find your spookiest paperweights in time for Halloween.



This is my submission for my Desk-crop. It is a piece of Amber.  I know its not very spooky.  But it has a lot of sentimental meaning to me. It was given to me by my exchange student from the Mecklenburger region of Germany. He lived in Rostock which is located on the Baltic Sea.  As a child he liked to collect pieces of amber on the beach.  He wanted me to have a piece of his home.
  I have wondered about the texture on it.  At first I thought the texture was from the tree bark that it might have been on.  But it doesn't look like bark.  Now I wonder if the texture wasn't formed as it dried and shrunk.
( New material added 11-3-10) As Matt at Research at a Snails Pace, has pointed out Amber is a fossil resin from coniferous trees.(The Dictionary of Geological Terms rev. ed -1976 Prepared under the direction of the American Geological Institute pg 12). The piece I have is very light and weathered.  I could see how it would float on the Baltic sea and be washed ashore after it had weathered out of the rock. The edges are rounded so I feel like it has been in the water.  On the back side there appears to be some salt crystals in some holes. It also appears as if something tried to burrow into it creating those holes were the salt, accumulated. I tried to take a picture of it but my camera just couldn't capture it and do it justice.
I was also wondering if anyone knows anything about how Amber changes as it solidifies. My initial assumption it was caused by resting next to some tree bark, then I changed it to shrinkage due to solidification because it has the polygonal indentations on it that are typical as mud dries.  But the problem I've had with that is they do not radiate inwards, but I am dealing with weathering too. Now I'm also considering the possibility that it might have come from being next to an animal skin. But if it was on top of the skin the ridges should be sticking up and not indented in as they are.  There is something about it that makes me think of snakes.  Now I wondering if a snake could have shed its skin and some how the amber got inside of it and solidified in the trapped skin. Any theories anyone else comes up with would be greatly appreciated.   It is a fun piece to pick up and ponder (ophs) I should say muse upon.

These photos are on the table next to my desk where I work.  I think of it as my Germany section.
The exchange student is the boy in the Shreve shirt to the right, in the 3x 5 photo. The little boy with him is my youngest son.  I have it next to the picture of me when I was in Germany on my honeymoon 25 years ago.   







Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Baltic amber.

Baltic amber

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Baltic amber collected at Sopot, Poland.

Typical beach sand on the Baltic Sea where amber is often washed up.

Different colours of Baltic amber.

Fishing for amber at the seacoast, Mikoszewo, close to Gdansk, Poland.

The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber, with about 80% of the world's known amber found there. It dates 44 million years ago (Eocene).^[1] It has been estimated that these forests created over 10⁵ tons of amber.^[2]
The term Baltic amber is generic, so amber from the Bitterfeld brown coal mines in Saxonia (Eastern Germany) goes under the same name. Bitterfeld amber was previously believed to be only 20-22 million years old (Miocene), but a comparison of the animal inclusions revealed that it is most probably genuine Baltic amber that has only been redeposited in a Miocene deposit.^[3]
Because Baltic amber contains about 8% succinic acid, it is also termed succinite.
It was thought since the 1850s that the resin that became amber was produced by the tree Pinites succinifer, but research in the 1980's came to the conclusion that the resin originates from several species. More recently it has been proposed, on the evidence of Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of amber and resin from living trees, that conifers of the family Sciadopityaceae were responsible.^[2] The only extant representative of this family is the Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata.
Numerous extinct genera and species of plants and animals have been discovered and scientifically described from inclusions in Baltic amber.^[4]

[edit] See also

• Dominican amber
• Amber

[edit] References

1. ^ Ritzkowski, S. 1997. K-Ar-Altersbestimmungen der bernsteinführenden Sedimente des Samlandes (Paläogen, Bezirk Kaliningrad). Metalla, Bochum, 66: 19–23.
2. ^ ^{a b} Wolfe, A. P. et al. 2009. A new proposal concerning the botanical origin of Baltic amber. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0806
3. ^ Dunlop, J.A. & Giribet, G. 2003. The first fossil cyphophthalmid (Arachnida: Opiliones), from Bitterfeld amber, Germany. Journal of Arachnology, 31: 371-378.
4. ^ Weitschat, W. & Wichard, W. 2002. Atlas of Plants and Animals in Baltic Amber. Pfeil, 256 pp.

This material-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_amber"

Categories: Fossil resins | Eocene | Oligocene | Paleontolog

But the 'Desk-Crop' I enjoy the most is the view I get from looking out of my home windows. I love working out of my home because I enjoy living on the bayou so much.  It makes it feel like I am living in the south.
Here is the view from the desk I used to work at all the time.  It is now my youngest son's bedroom, so now I have to work at a different place in the house, but it is still my favorite view of my back yard.

When the weathers nice I sometimes prefer to work from my back porch.  Here's the view I get from there.  I always find it so peace full and calming.









More views of my back yard.  I enjoy my back yard because it is always constant but ever changing.

 

This is a couple of days after The New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl. (2-12-10) We all said Hell really did freeze over for us to get snow.  For years and years that has always been a standard joke in LA.  - That the Aint's would only win when Hell freezes over.  Now they are not the Ain't but the  
Saints of the 'WHO DAT' Nation.

We also have a camp on Lake Bistineau which I sometimes go and work at too.  Here are some photo's of the yard. The kids like going there because it's reminds them of the Louisiana swamps and is a lot more spookier than our back yard.

I am now in the Wedge thanks to Matt. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
I'm just including what's been added, to the wedge stuff.

Ann Says:
November 3, 2010 at 1:54 am | Reply
Why can’t you edit your blog to include me now? Why do I have to wait until the next time? Why have they stopped posting things here at the wedge?

• Matt Says:
  November 3, 2010 at 2:55 pm Ann,
  I just found your blog and scrolled down to see your AW#28 post. I added it to the list. I don’t know why the updates on the AW main page aren’t more frequent, you’d have to ask the person in charge of the site.
  

UPDATE: Ann,who muses on geology and other things, has a post. It got lost in the shuffle and I wasn't able to find a link to the post until today. She writes a few musings about a piece of amber. As you may know, amber is the fossilized sap of trees. It has the interesting property of being slightly less dense than salt water, so sometimes chunks of amber erode out of the rock where they are preserved and wash up somewhere down the shore.

Labels: accretionary wedge, blog carnival, deskcrops, halloween, trinitite