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|| Dominican
amber and Burmese amber For Sale || |
|| Fluorescent Minerals For Sale (Franklin and Sterling Hill) || |
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Welcome to
TerraTreasures and Adventures101 home page. We offer rare
fluorescent minerals from the Sterling Hill and Franklin
Zinc mines of Ogdensburg and Franklin New Jersey. We did
extensive video taping and sample gathering in Sterling Hill
before the mine was flooded. We also offer museum quality
Dominican amber and Burmese amber (Myanmar) with insects for
sale and also rare Dominican blue amber for sale. Our
collections include museum quality display specimens of rare
insects in amber, unusual botanicals and flowers in amber
and also rare Dominican blue amber. We have been collecting
amber in the field since 1993, including extensive
excavations in New Jersey, North Carolina, Wyoming, several
localities in Alaska, and of course many many trips to the
Dominican Republic where we have chiseled out beautiful
Dominican amber gemstones in small hand excavated tunnels
deep into the rich amber veins way up in the mountains north
of Santiago. We have some cool photos of the Dominican amber
mines and some short video links of us chiseling out amber
gemstones in the amber mines and we have some neat
information about amber research on Dominican amber,
Dominican blue amber and ambers found throughout the world.
Enjoy!
latest update August 2021
our first collecting trip post pandemic was back to Arkansas
with a side trip to the late Cretaceous of Tennessee. It was
great to get out into the field again, and hopefully we'll
get some more trips in again before they lock us all down
again!
latest update April 2019 -8th
International Conference on Fossil Insects, Arthropods and
Amber (abbreviated to Fossils x3) held in Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic!
September 2018 latest update September 2018
- A historical site looks promising. latest update June 2017 - We just returned from collecting Eocene amber in the southern part of the United States, we have some interesting inclusions we've found and will post photos shortly. Also - another fantastic bird specimen from Burmese amber, by the same authors that published on the bird wing from last year. Abstract: "Burmese amber has
recently provided some detailed glimpses of plumage, soft
tissues, and osteology of juvenile enantiornithine birds,
but these insights have been restricted to isolated wing
apices. Here we describe nearly half of a hatchling
individual, based on osteological and soft tissue data
obtained from the skull, neck, feet, and wing, and
identified as a member of the extinct avian clade
Enantiornithes. Preserved soft tissue provides the unique
opportunity to observe the external opening of the ear, the
eyelid, and fine details of tarsal scutellation. The new
amber specimen yields the most complete view of hatchling
plumage and integument yet to be recovered from the
Cretaceous, including details of pterylosis, feather
microstructure, and pigmentation patterns. The hatchling was
encapsulated during the earliest stages of its feather
production, providing a point for comparisons to other forms
of body fossils, as well as isolated feathers found in
Cretaceous ambers. The plumage preserves an unusual
combination of precocial and altricial features unlike any
living hatchling bird, having functional remiges combined
with sparse body feathers. Unusual feather morphotypes on
the legs, feet, and tail suggest that first generation
feathers in the Enantiornithes may have been much more like
contour feathers than the natal down observed in many modern
birds. However, these regions also preserve filamentous
feathers that appear comparable to the protofeathers
observed in more primitive theropods. Overall, the new
specimen brings a new level of detail to our understanding
of the anatomy of the juvenile stages of the most
species-rich clade of pre-modern birds and contributes to
mounting data that enantiornithine development drastically
differed from that of Neornithes." http://terratreasures.com/amber/research/publications/Enantiornithine Latest update July 2016 -
We are planning our next trip to the Dominican Republic for
next month. We'd like to share a few research papers that
have been published recently - some of this inclusions being
found in 99.8 million year old Burmese (Myanmar) amber are
just fantastic and worthy of a read. Note the below: Flying Dinosaur feathers found in Burmese amber (click on the image below)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/dinosaur-bird-feather-burma-amber-myanmar-flying-paleontology-enantiornithes/
Latest update June 2014 - We have just returned from excavating amber in the Dominican Republic again!, this is our 2nd trip in 2 months and we plan another before the end of the summer. We excavated in the Palo Quemado, Los CaCaos and La Bucara amber mines. This was a good trip with Justin and Tyler Mitnick. This was Tyler's first trip to the Dominican amber mines. The weather was fantastic with no rain so Los CaCaos was dry but the entrance shafts are straight down using rope ladders. They are moving lots of earth at La Bucara and many miners are working there. We'll post some photos soon along with some cool amber inclusions! Some photos from our 2 collecting trips in 2017 to the American south midwest:
March 2014 - We have just returned from excavating amber in the Dominican Republic. We excavated in the Los CaCaos, La Bucara and La Cumbre amber mines. This was a good trip, we collected both blue and fossil yellow amber from the same layers in La Cumbre, lots of gemmy amber from La Bucara. There is amazing work being done in the mountains north and east of Santiago We'll post some photos soon along with some cool amber inclusions!
September 2012 -
We have just returned from excavating amber in the Dominican
Republic. We excavated in the Los CaCaos, La Toca, La
Cumbre, La Bucara and Palo Alto amber mines. This was a good
trip, we collected both blue and fossil yellow amber from
the same layers in La Cumbre, lots of gemmy amber from La
Bucara and black amber from La Toca. The tunnels in the La
Toca amber mines are very very deep, there are sometimes
less than 2 1/2 feet high with barely enough room for 2
people to crawl in side by side and over 300 meters deep -
not for the claustrophobic at all! We'll post some photos
soon along with some cool amber inclusions. update February 2012
- We have just returned from collecting cambay amber in
India with the American Museum of Natural History. We will
be posting new collecting photos soon. To see photos of our
previous collecting trip to India in 2010 visit this link http://www.cambayamber.com update June 2010 - We have just returned from collecting amber in the America Midwest with the American Museum of Natural History. We have been collecting amber and other fossils out west since 1997. This trip we found many beautiful gemstones and will be posting a few photos and some data shortly. update January 2010
- We have just returned from collecting amber in Asia with
the American Museum of Natural History. We have found many
beautiful gemstones and will be posting a few photos and
some data shortly. Hopefully we'll have some papers to link
by mid July 2010. December 2005 - We have just added links to our New Jersey Amber Pages, our Wyoming Amber Pages and our Alaskan Amber Pages. Very have hundreds of photographs of our collecting friends, the amber excavations, the amber specimens and of course the amber inclusions. Many of our New Jersey amber photos are from the very early days of 1993 through 1998 pre digital so please keep that in mind when viewing these photos that are fairly old, enjoy! August 30, 2004 -
We have just returned from another collecting trip in the
Dominican Republic. In the mountains there are less and less
miners actually working in the amber mines and as we
suspected the miners are finding little 1st quality blue
amber, and little amber in general, we excavated in 3 mines
at La Cumbre and found almost nothing of significance. The
miners have reopened some old workings at La Toca, however
as always La Toca has the highest percentage of oxidized
amber, whereas La Cumbre and Palo Quemado have the highest
percentage of 1st quality fossiliferous gemstones, although
we did see some very large amber stones from La Toca that
the miners brought to us while we were excavating in La
Cumbre. We have returned with some very nice large amber
gemstones from La Cumbre barren of fossils but wonderful for
jewelry work, and some very nice fossil gemstones, including
an exceptional feather, a large Cerambycid, several snails
and some cool flies with our paleoentomologist friends at
the American Museum of Natural History will examine and
identify. July 30, 2004 - A slow moving landslide caused by floods in late spring of 2005 have destroyed the homes of some 40 miners near Palo Quemado and La Nueva Toca amber mines. No one was injured and all have moved. The mine workings are now covered by tons of dirt on the roadside of the mountain. We have several hundred new specimens that we are preparing and photographing and will be offering soon, including some very unusual spiders. |
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