Letter: Ancient amber

Friday 11 October 1996 00:02 BST

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Sir: The discovery of early Cretaceous (125 million years old) amber (Significant Shorts, 8 October) is by no means unique. In fact, amber of the same age was described from the Isle of Wight three years ago. However, these are not the oldest. Nuggets of even older fossilised tree resins have been found in the Triassic rocks of Arizona and also in the Appalachians, USA, at least 220 and 300 million years old respectively.

Dr CHRIS NICHOLAS

Dr MARK RUDNICKI

Department of Earth Sciences

University of Cambridge

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