[000 00 00;00] the number one of the great mysteries and the treasures of the world. And one of the largest deposits of stuff is right here in the baltic sea. So we are in the clinic, rod region, trying to learn all the we can about this multi color. The want to meet cool is a geologist and painting intelligence. Amber is important to his work and hes the perfect person to give us some perspective. The 3rd one is here. Um i see sounds a member. Lets get right to it. Scientists disagree as to what exactly it is. Is it a stone . Is it a gym . Is it resin . What is amber . Exactly. The just me. Yes, im a good question. From a geological point of view, you cant cool amber, a mineral, a minimal levine or a stone. Its an organic substance, fossilized resin, or if they skipped by most smoking like chemical point of view, its an im office frame pull about its composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Its literally like most organic substances on us. They can also contain impurities, like sofa and other elements settings. That means that water is amber. Its fossilized resident for 2 of the fossilized greg information plants. I was wondering if i still have the ancient greeks new with them, but i dont get a call origin smaller and is origin from plants even you agree to as it does when he wrote about these these, these 2 have some baltic tribe that lived in the 1st century a, the said they collected fossilized resident which contained remnants of plants. So that was back in ancient greece. And during the 18th century, called an ass and a great me if i use them. And also for almost single tediously determined that and that is all get i can nature and comes from plants to push the number is only found in the leningrad region. Theres literally, its just a, theres a lot. Yeah, ill tell you why a little later. And it can be found in many places around the world, mostly in the northern hemisphere. Dominican number is very famous as well as them, but from them its moving as bo mike. Theres also a lot of amber in the far north. You turn in the polar regions move in the time you have a tendency left on. So kind in near lake bank of steven and both fridays. Um, but when you are up in 3 places, i mean you can and around the coming grad, poland, ukraines rough in the region, depending gemini section a log in december is old, roughly the same age, but its very important that the m bus throughout the world is a difference of geological ages through stuff in some places there is geologically young member and to now those at smaller ancient. But many geologists may consider sucks unite to be true and excellent. Different types of em, but i have different names here. This is called sucks and i to name it exists here in leningrad, just enrolled now and in germany. Full arrest found in various parts of the world of gold, amber like residence. Yeah. They differ in their physical and Chemical Properties that are less dense, less of biscuits, and really used to make jewelry clothes last, whats good about all around, you know, a sex. And i say, well, is that its actively used in jewelry making me an interesting question. Is how amber foamed. And when that happens, im just going to still talk about as i will see. Mm hm. Scientists have for ways of measuring the age of um, amber. So what is the oldest known sample that we have available to us . Oh, no. Okay. Yes. Maam and you before it started because he said, well of course its not as old as our planet or as we know from the oldest rocks, this is 4500000000 years old. Oh, planet was formed around 4 to 6000000 years ago. As well as the moon and the planet system. Of course, amber is very young compared to the smaller amber, like the piece in my hand is around 37000000 years old. Its its, its geologically young. But theres more ancient amber. I used for example, in burma, who am i am a oh, its about a 100000000 years old. From the cretaceous period, houses from the pedagogy in period. What does em but gold cocoa, its very young. 30, a few 1000 years old. You can find it in japan and South East Asia and in the Southern Hemisphere he told me you can find cocoa in ogden to, you know, if you wouldnt mind, its just a few 1000 years old. But how do we know the age . If we look at this deposit, what its a marine deposit from an ancient see, i thought it was, its the same age as december. Does it for someone who can find em, but in them, but to a lesser degree must be as low as they were formed in a c, but not the baltics. A video, the politics that you dan logically young. Sure. Its 10 to 12000 years old and you know, because it was formed in iglesia lake, it was with the baltic. Sea is now doing. This came from a melting garcia. Its about 20000 years ago. But before that, this land was dry hunter. And under these calm, re, in Shallow Water conditions, i thought of the sealed clay and some deposits foamed what we see here, a sort of comes to 2 to 3 meters. And the rest of it is a different kind of deposit gold. With blue, a little blue ground bed watching and amber is highly concentrated press nicely in this blue us and a fortunately, sol, amber reserves can be found in blue with us. Why isnt that . Why do we find amber here on the coast border . Because this blue ethics stands out about 10 meters from the seat belt and with that with lips, then well see wash it down here, and the other is lighter than water. Its light. So it ends up on the b triple that we collected. Well, yes it most of it, right. So about the age of amber, youve talked about that, but how long does it take for the resident to actually become amber itself . Which flows in, of course, thats very complicated because these im a reading deposit titled and performed on land comes from trees. So there are many hypotheses about this. One of the theories is that the was a Shallow Water see here, and ive also left them there. Where does land the river flowed 37000000 years ago, just. It was cold enough to spend the forests growing throughout all of this area that produced this residence. The resin fell into the river and here the same way were supposed its miles where it fluid into it, like google and all that. And but from the river, accumulated in this marine settlement on the basis of the chemical physical transformation of arisen into em. But res, complex and its still not completely clear how because its not known how long its spent in the soil is blue, or if it fell directly into the river. Or if it land the ground and was then washed into it. Because model number like cotton or remember if the coco thats being dug off is very brittle, like a typical resin truck. Its not sticky with but very brittle. It just keep the sucks and it has a very Interesting Properties, but its very hard with a high melting point. Its almost like can be found in different colors and so on and use that. So well connected to its origin because we still dont understand what kind of tree produce them, but for example, japanese em, but was produced by the group industries. But what exactly was lines finally done . Snow for cool, for in the currency, the main Scientific Research points those times rays, because we find pine twigs in the embassy to spend the japanese umbrella pine. Thats also a kind of forestry that still grows today. It just, its also its not really clear, but i think was a will eventually show us that comes up on, you know, most the book of what about this place itself. I know youve already mentioned that there are other places around the world where amber is available and you can find it. But it is often said that here in the baltic, its the best quality, amber. Why . The baltic white here . Im not talking about. Well, 37000000 years ago that was a completely different conditions. Now its cold like that, but then there was sub tropical conditions because it was quite warm. Will the why . The continents were in about the same place as now. But with and talk like it, we had a continental drift until the ticket was connected to us strangely. There was no and optics component current as a friday. There was no ice cap on the optics. And dr. Go and there wasnt a temperate climate here. How do we know it was warm, sick of sucks and if there is deposits, have accumulated fossils from life forms that like teeth, that dont live in the baltics anymore. So this deposit is gold. Is emily a credit . Otherwise theres an electron. There are a lot of accumulated was if you search, you will find some what start to look good enough. First, find that the noise to show us the history event and number of which of the key to living animals. And then the waste is in the baltic. Now lets look proctor and we didnt really have see a country is or muscles is really a completely different dynamos. Live here on the see bed look start to continue and with also little c o 2 and you see it yeah, right here. Ok, so how do they get here . I mean, we know that for a paleontologist like yourself, amber is a very rich material for you to find history and to learn about our past. And what has been the coolest thing that youve been able to find. Were just using, well actually its not only fossils we find in them, but bearing deposits moves that in the amber itself. There are fossil inclusions thats very interesting because if the fossil loses its structure, manually inclusions preserve the tiniest details like inside passing through from a poly until logical point of view. Thats a treasure trove. Whats the truth of new knowledge about the ancient m . Before is that existed here 37000000 years ago to collide . Well, i went speak to myself, but about the ref. Finds you can come across and use it for examples to lizards have been found in bolted kind of goes camel spiders that live in warm regions. You know, the majority of animals, we find the number of triplets this, the small animals that fell into a red and trap and they couldnt get out and just remained to them. But it was, but its rare to find the big around the most because big around the most can escape from the residence that we very rarely find fleas because fleas on them all of our sites and they can jump very quickly, you know, so long ago, had was found from a memo, weve never come across the premium will, for example, in dominican amber, which is more ancient and boy, yeah, there was a famous dinosaur, will find you the hand of a small bed like dinah. So what i have to ask a lot of people have seen the movie Jurassic Park and are fascinated by the idea. In fact, when i telling people about amber, this is the 1st thing they asked me, is this something that scientists are working on to be able to extract dna and maybe revive dinosaurs or something along those lines . The just, thats a good question. Just so you can actually, if you look at the inclusions in the amber, you can see, find the titles and smart gate. Those dont work, but its on sale. So defense, its a poly merick substance. Yeah, theres a diffusion takes place. What we see is the animal itself, its a sort of animal in print like a 3 d shadow of the animal itself. For the reason this practically no biological content. The reason the also by both nucleic acid has a quite complicated structure, decomposes quite quickly, and its only for about 500 years or so. They conducted some experiments. They took residence, todays residence. They bought insects and its just a very different slope and trying to sequence the dna. Yeah, about 5 years went by with the well no results showing that we could completely recreate dna item and that was only after 5 years. And were talking millions of years. Unfortunately, amber is a poor trap for such organic structures when it comes to dna. Okay, hold on. So jurassic tough may be a great and beautiful fairy tale, but unfortunately, it is just a fairy tale. What about the clarity . So you have very Different Levels of color. Sometimes its a milky sometimes. If even blue is one of the rare colors, what gives amber . Its a specific color. And why is there such a wide range . You say oh, you think the milky, amber, whats the transparent . Amber, it can be light blue or a greenish color. Oh, this depends on decembers chemical composition. Lets see if there are many aspects to consider. It depends on the kinds of impurity this was the amount of fracturing remo, fracturing the less transparent when there are a few of fractures, it can be highly transparent when there are a lot of fractions. Its more opaque solution, but most highly value them. But there is milky amber because its stronger thing. Its the most commonly used in jewelry making. Theres also a rolton amber which is very fragile, but thats all connected to its physical Chemical Properties. But the chemical formular itself is always about the same, do not cover a search and see one for each 16. 00 or 2 full. But that could be an inclusion of different elements. Just let me know if the junior, because it really meant for me. What about the physical characteristics . I mean member can float, its not particularly dense and it actually burn is if you try and set it on fire, it can melts. Uh what are some of the other characteristics of amber and why is it this way . Oh, this is the what you know, the source machine city well, but it has a lot of Interesting Properties in the summer and probably the most interesting it is. Its newman essence. If we were to come here at night with an ultra violet light and turn it on and wed see how it glows in different colors, new key green. Those are transparent, luminous, light blue. Thats also caused by that old genic lattice that reacts to the ultra violet light. So she had what asked to ask um, im fascinated by her tattoos. I know that you love what you do and it shows in our conversation. But your tattoos are the amber related as well . Are these just random creatures that youve adorned yourself with . No, no, this is the fun question. Um we have some parental, im a probably ontology is to conduct research in various areas. Not only these em but bearing deposit seconds. My ph. D dissertation was im trying to but extinct marine officer pucks witness now to become a full professor. Im working on a paper thats also one ancient golfer pods, immune system, oregon. So these are the kinds of species ive written about. Okay, so, uh, yeah, so thats my style. I guess the, the near at the amber museum in cleaning drugs. They have one of the Worlds Largest collections of the precious stones. Eating a cube on us is indeed exhibition curator here. And i bet sheets some stories to tell the eating. And thanks for taking the time to meet us here. Um this is such a beautiful collection. I wanna ask, what has amber meant to teach amenities throughout the years . To finish ordering by chicago across the now theres a lot to take in here because amber has great significance for me. Just came, we dont know exactly why it was considered magical, 4000 years ago. And thats what it seems that was magical. Is that when we were at the beginning of the 80 period, the amber trade was making, it was connected with the romans who considered amber to be a magical stone because of a greek legend. The amber trade greatly affected the Economic Life of europe during that period, even though it started here. When the i asked he lived on this land is later, amber became one of the most important materials traded between the hands, sciatic league, and the teutonic order. It is just then a diplomatic gift, a gemstone, and the medicine for half before majority of diseases. So now it makes fantastic jewelry, and in principle we can find amber throughout human history. So troy is chris put it so either i know that there are a lot of legends surrounding amber. Uh, what is your favorite was was probably my favorite one describes the attitude of people in ancient rome towards amber, which has had an influence on many of us being able, its the story of a paste on your phone who suspected that he was the son of helio, the sun, god shall see us to drive his fathers chariot with its fiery horses, but couldnt cope with and was killed if the sub list. And now, according to the legend, amber is present and also the tears of the daughters of the sun. God showing it so this shows the attitude of the romans towards amber. Its the stone that lights away in the after life. Well, theres a legend that started various violins were even coated with a powder of amber. What other uses are there for this stone . Youve always for this portion, or its been used for many Different Things to send or anything from diplomatic gifts, this to amber lenses for measuring the density of beer. And at some point, it was discovered the amber improve circulation, understand and can be used for blood transfusions. Grove, in the 17th century, or even earlier, many medicines contained amber is when it was actually thought the amber was a cure for the plane. Although that may have been a legend started by amber catchers who spent a lot of time in water. So they had better hygiene and at the war. But none the less, the spell doctors treating the plague to amber wisdom and put it in the beach masks. It was thought the amber or a unicorn horn, which was actually ivory and couldnt detect to poison and food or drinks to ship. Those things werent quite readily available at all. But they still thought it had these powers. There was a belief that amber powder or oils were very useful for treating diseases, but to find out which disease is exactly why youd have to collect prescriptions from all over europe. For example, theres one prescription from the pope, from the 13th century. This piece of property in school thing not split the so how does amber make its way from the mines in its natural state to jewelry and museum showcases, we were able to get access to december coming up to a unique entity which handles the whole process. The like thank you very much for taking the time to bring us out here and see how this all goes down. So i have to ask, this deposit is about 50000000 years old. My understanding is to get something that old you have to go really, really deep. Maybe even down to the core. Uh or does the amber just kind of find its way up to the surface . Talk to me about that process. So there are some, do you have enough . Yes. A very valid question. Im. Were now located at the side of the biggest amber deposit on the planet to get to the layers with amber bearing clay. We have to remove 50 to 60 meters, so waste, or you know, thats what most of our people work on. So we do 10 times more work removing ways to get to the blue earth. If the side has been in operation since the 9th and 17th and theyd be extract it 10000 tons of amber here, and theres got to be 100000 left voltage to so you and i surely wont live to see you over move. Can you read him thoughts . So talk to me about the whole process. So you dig, you find you process it, talk to me, how do you find amber to know much terms that was the well, any Mining Operation begins with geological exploration that the you geologists search for the amber, they could bore whole new tests and determine the con, tours of the deposit and its while you, instead of doing you after that would bring into miners so you will already know approximately what depth will will find average deposits, how much there will be. And we can already make some preliminary calculations and look at the economy shortly as far as the equipment is concerned. So form of 50 meters using various ill shoot you by. Employ move the 1st 25 meters with small excavators and trucks, which take all the waste or is from the developed space and the bit of them. I mean, we remove the lower layers where you can find water that henders Vehicle Movement off with drag line excavators near which you can see over there about that arent affected by water adult. Wasting my arms, one bucket load can remove about 20 tons of waste or see if its, you know, thats what its doing now is. And when this excavator finishes its work will finally reach the top of the blue earth with a 5 meter deep layer of blue. Earth which contains the amber will we need to lift this layer with the help of the excavator, and so keep with the powerful stream of sea water. So after that, the slurry made up a scan of the clay and sea water, as well as the amber itself, goes to our Processing Plant out of our separation and sorting stuff. Them very cool. Now when i think of amber, i think of small pieces with inclusions and them. What is the biggest piece of amber . Are the most exciting thing that you found here . Its a yes and i shall, and theyve got enough. So now i wont say about this. I but in general, 0 has been established that a piece of amber weighing 12 kilograms was found in the baltic coast in the 19th century. Its always, thats a very rare example on building i would say probably wasnt of the best quality because the bigger is a piece of amber. The more likely it is to have floss expecting that this far this side is concerned. Like a few years ago, we found a piece waiting more than 3 kilograms, so youll feel like its now in the sites, amber museum, where anyone who wants to see the categories are likely with a variety of shapes and large color palette. Amber has always been an inspiring medium for many artist piano. A pumpkin as family has been looking at, giving amber, a new perspective. Well, also preserving centuries of tradition is on it. Its always interesting to come into an Artist Workshop to see where everything happens. So thank you for the opportunity. I know that amber is quite fragile to work with. Is this an asset or is this something that harms you when youre working with a uh yeah, i was raised here in colin and grad and ive been coming to the coast and collecting amber since i was a child. Get a quote. It was very exciting. I knew it was light and fragile, even back then you simply fall in love with this material and little by little he learned to work with that. Yours to acceptance for jill. It a nice but i have a project with but little bit here. Touch him. Yeah. You, i worked on the edge here, slipping off pieces. I just so i played around with its for jewelry and it turned out like this book at all or so. There are advantages to e. Boy choice backwards dealer. How do you select a piece of effort to work with . Yeah, what to do next for so i use 2 methods. I lay out the amber, i buy it at the mill. This is fine. We cut it into the slabs and sort them by size. Okay, there are 2 options, basically do something with what you have or come up with an idea by carefully selecting each piece. You can go through everything there and then find none of it works for you. So even if you have a ton of amber, your idea might not fit. Its a very long process, but in any case, you have to find the right piece law. Settlement to late, you know that some artist actually color the amber in some way. Do you color your amber specifically for a piece of work or do you like to use the natural color that exist . Yeah, which i only like to use natural amber, just natural colors without any chemicals or physical coloring. Just because its great is it is you can choose a piece of amber to work on, but with time its color will change. Its very interesting and how you execute your work will impact the color over time. And how it might look later, it will be, depends on the artist the skill i wanted to ask about that does amber actually change over time . Not just the color, but the, the texture of the emperor as well. Uh, for its shape. Yes, its white amber for example. Here the oil evaporates little by little and this changes its structure a bit. But these are Little Things that only a craftsman will notice. The color of this kind of amber will change a year by year. If you have a piece like this, you can take a picture of it every year, and every year youll see a different color. Its very interesting. So if we take amber of this usual golden color, it will start darkening 20 or 30 years later or so thats quite a long time. But it will only become more valuable with time is valuable, increase with that color. And its interesting that my favorite amber is black amber. I dont think its very well known color for amber. So it has an interesting peculiarity and that it does the opposite. Over time. It becomes slightly gold and every year its like a drop of gold is that as well . So its very interesting to observe this little bit of that. Very cool. Now youve touched on this a little bit before, but i see that you have a sketch over here. When you are working with amber, do you sketch out your ideas and then follow that pattern or just the amber speak to you . To give you an idea of what youre working on me yet. You know ive learned how to make the stone work for me. Its you plan to work and already know which stone to work with was his last vehicle quick. I knew kind of would that help with that . May i ask what youre working on right now . I guess to just deal with what im, what im doing this. Not long ago, they discovered a horde of valuables from 1300 b. C in cyprus and found pieces of amber. So people have been extracting december for all that time going into the sea and collecting it. And my project is called the inver catcher. Unfortunately, people die collecting this amber even now young people who havent really mastered scuba diving, also die. So this idea came to me later, the amber capture, whether its a realistic person or some kind of human form worse call. And so im doing this kind of work now, and these are already finished forms of practically ready to be worked on to. So these are the shapes that im looking. Its also interesting. Thank you very much. I appreciate the, [000 00 00;00] the, the most afraid of robert f. Kennedy junior, well, apparently everyone in the political establishment and Mainstream Media very much like donald trump. He says what he thinks liberal science hes be dead junior is fear. Because the spirit of the question say that, suppose that fits by eco wants to negotiate a peaceful solution to the clients, to serve in asia. A warning against the military intervention of west africa and block put, fits and military forces on stand by india proposed the bill to repel controversial. Sufficient was dating back to the colonial tonnes as the government 6 disciplines. And theyve been, depends in the Justice System on the way to make is cool for slashing military