Letter: Ancient amber
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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