Recent and fossil resins from New Zealand and Australia

✍ Scribed by Joseph B. Lambert; Suzanne C. Johnson; George O. Poinar Jr.; James S. Frye

• Book ID: 102844359
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 773 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0883-6353
• DOI: 10.1002/gea.3340080206

✦ Synopsis

The carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of fossil resins from New Zealand and Australia have been compared with those of modern and semifossilized materials. The great majority of the fossilized samples have strong spectral similarities to modern Agathis resins and to North American fossil resins, which have been attributed to Agathis. The Agathis-related spectra are different from those of modern Hymenaea and Araucaria. A small subgroup of Late Cretaceous resins from Australia and Papua New Guinea appears to derive from a different botanical source and shows strong resemblances to Claiborne amber from Arkansas. The spectral resonances of the exomethylene carbons degrade over time and on average provide an approximate measure of the geological age of Agathis-related fossil resins.