Amber is a fossil resin of ancient coniferous stands. Amber is known to man as much as people themselves exist on Earth. It is found in archaeological excavations of settlements of primitive people.
This light and beautiful pebble was given magical significance, different tribes considered it to be pieces of the Sun that fell to the ground, they healed ailments, with the help of jewelry they charmed him, made conspiracies on him. All this in one way or another exists now, but the main purpose of this organic material is industry, medicine, electronics, jewelry.
Ancient methods of mining amber
Usually people collected pieces of tar on the seashore. Sea waves often carried them to the beaches, small fragments were found in large numbers on the coasts of the whole world. But over time, there were more and more hunters for amber fragments and people had to catch them from the water on a boat. Such a craft was called “scooping”, since tar formations were caught with netting.
To get to larger pieces, “puncturing” was used. This was done with the help of pointed peaks in shallow water. And when the deposits dried up at a shallow depth, the time came for the "wells" - the kopans, which were located on the beach site. In the 16th century, the first shallow quarries appeared and stone mining became industrial.
Modern amber mining technology
Currently, amber is being developed in large quantities, large companies are engaged in this and mechanized methods of extraction are used, this work has several stages.
Development by a hydraulic monitor and dredging devices
This method is the main one and represents the effect of a powerful water jet on the overburden (coating that covers the amber-bearing layer).
Water together with waste rock forms a pulp, which is discharged into the sea through pipes using dredging devices.
The exposed blue earth is being developed by a walking excavator. With the help of a bucket, this amber-rich mass is folded into a cone slide and the hydraulic monitor starts working again, turning this slide into a mud-like slurry.
With dredgers, this slurry is piped to an enrichment plant. Passing through these production stages, precious raw materials are exposed to losses - 10 percent of the material is lost with this method.
Experts believe that the best option for production is a method that excludes hydrotransport. Technically, this is done as follows: a bucket excavator selects the “blue earth” in the quarry and feeds it to the conveyor. According to it, all the rock with amber content goes to a concentration plant, where amber inclusions are extracted without loss.
The final stage of production is the sorting of fragments by size, color, content of inclusions, transparency, configuration.
Why can amber be colored?
Resin petrified in sedimentary rocks can take on the color of surrounding minerals.Therefore, amber is not only yellow and golden in color, it can have various shades - green, brown, blue and even white. By refraction of light, the pebbles are divided into transparent, opaque, smoky.
The main places of amber extraction
The main places of amber production are the Baltic states, Kaliningrad region, Western Ukraine, the Urals. There are deposits in Mexico, Japan, China, Romania and Sicily. But the main area of occurrence of large deposits is the coast of the Baltic Sea. These stones are exported; their quality is valued all over the world. The remaining deposits are not of industrial importance.
