Ralf Tappert

Correlation of Grassy Lake and Cedar Lake ambers using infrared spectroscopy, stable isotopes, and palaeoentomology

The Late Cretaceous Grassy Lake and Cedar Lake amber deposits of western Canada are among North America’s most famous amber-producing localities. Although it has been suggested for over a century that Cedar Lake amber from western Manitoba may be a secondary deposit having originated from strata in Alberta, this hypothesis has not been tested explicitly using geochemical fingerprinting coupled to comparative analyses of arthropod faunal content. Although there are many amber-containing horizons associated with Cretaceous coals throughout Alberta, most are thermally mature and brittle, thus lacking the resilience to survive long distance transport while preserving intact biotic inclusions. One of the few exceptions is the amber found in situ at Grassy Lake. We present a suite of new analyses from these and other Late Cretaceous ambers from western Canada, including stable isotopes (H and C), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra, and an updated faunal compendium for the Grassy and Cedar lakes arthropod...

Deep mantle diamonds from South Australia: A record of Pacific subduction at the Gondwanan margin

Diamonds from Jurassic kimberlites at Eurelia, South Australia, contain coexisting inclusions of ferropericlase and MgSi-perovskite that provide evidence for their deep (>670 km) lower mantle origin. Eurelia diamonds formed from mixed carbon sources, likely including subducted carbonate, as indicated by a trend toward isotopically heavy carbon compositions (δ 13 C = 0‰) and low nitrogen concentrations (

Insect outbreaks produce distinctive carbon isotope signatures in defensive resins and fossiliferous ambers.

Despite centuries of research addressing amber and its various inclusions, relatively little is known about the specific events having stimulated the production of geologically relevant volumes of plant resin, ultimately yielding amber deposits. Although numerous hypotheses have invoked the role of insects, to date these have proven difficult to test. Here, we use the current mountain pine beetle outbreak in western Canada as an analogy for the effects of infestation on the stable isotopic composition of carbon in resins. We show that infestation results in a rapid (approx. 1 year) 13C enrichment of fresh lodgepole pine resins, in a pattern directly comparable with that observed in resins collected from uninfested trees subjected to water stress. Furthermore, resin isotopic values are shown to track both the progression of infestation and instances of recovery. These findings can be extended to fossil resins, including Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic and Late Cretaceous New Jersey amber, revealing similar carbon-isotopic patterns between visually clean ambers and those associated with the attack of wood-boring insects. Plant exudate δ13C values constitute a sensitive monitor of ecological stress in both modern and ancient forest ecosystems, and provide considerable insight concerning the genesis of amber in the geological record.