On the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June this year, there is a picture of chrysanthemum stone. The author of the paper belongs to Wang Bo, a researcher at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The title of the thesis is "Chrysanthemum Stone in Amber in Myanmar". In the future, this collector can't resell this amber to private individuals, but can only donate or sell it to museums, and at the same time provide convenience for professional researchers to study this amber.

The creatures in amber are clearly distinguishable.

Through the clear pictures of amber, we can clearly distinguish insects, snail shells and other creatures contained in amber. This amber is 33 mm long, 9.5 mm wide and 29 mm high. Although small, it contains more than 40 kinds of ancient creatures or their remains. "Most of them are mites and insects, but the most precious thing is the shell of ammonite."

Wang Bo said that chrysanthemum stone lives in seawater, while amber is made of natural resin. Generally speaking, amber-wrapped animals are all on land. It is very rare to wrap creatures living in the ocean, especially amber. "Generally, chrysanthemum stone appears normally in fossils and has never been found in amber."

Lay people lived 1 100 million years ago.

Wang Bo told the reporter of Beiqing Daily that although this amber is only the size of a pendant, the creatures in it are of great value to the study of ancient ecological environment, especially if the paper "Chrysanthemum Stone in Burmese Amber" written on this amber can be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Chrysanthemum stone is a kind of marine invertebrate that lived from Devonian to Cretaceous. It has evolved very quickly and has chronological significance. It can be judged by the age. Through the analysis of three-dimensional reconstruction, we confirmed that this chrysanthemum stone lived 654.38 billion years ago. " Wang Bo said, "At the same time, we studied the animals in this amber, and analyzed that they were living in the tropical forest by the sea, which is a bit like the Dominican coastal zone now. This small amber provides new insights for amber burial and Cretaceous forest ecological environment analysis. "

Wang Bo also has some small regrets about this piece of amber. "Through the microscope, we can see that there are many grains of sand in the shell of the ammonite, indicating that this ammonite has died when it was wrapped in resin. If it is alive when it is wrapped, it can be preserved. This has not been found in the world. "

Wang Bo said that for researchers, what they value more is the scientific value of amber. In order to protect this piece of amber, they also signed an agreement with the amber owner. In the future, this amber can no longer be sold, but can only be collected by this collector, or given or sold to a qualified museum. At the same time, professional researchers or research institutions want to study this amber, and the owner should be convenient.