Overview

• Published September 18 in Communications Earth & Environment, the team dated the Genoveva deposit in Ecuador’s Hollín Formation to about 112 million years ago.
• Of 60 aerial amber pieces, 21 contained bio-inclusions spanning at least five insect orders along with a fragment of spider web.
• Two amber types occur at the quarry—root and aerial—with biological inclusions confined to resin that hardened in air.
• Plant fossils in the surrounding rocks indicate a humid forest of ferns and conifers with early flowering plants making up roughly 37% of the flora.
• Researchers report the largest known Cretaceous amber occurrence in the Southern Hemisphere and continue analyses and fieldwork to expand the record.