Reassessment of amber-bearing deposits of Provence, southeastern France

Jean-Paul Saint Martin (1) , Yves Dutour (2, 3) , Luc Ebbo , Bruno Mazières , Didier Néraudeau (4) , Simona Saint Martin , Thierry Tortosa , Eric Turini , Xavier Valentin (5, 6)

1 CR2P - Centre de Recherche en Paléontologie - Paris
2 Direction Archéologie et Muséum de la ville d'Aix-en-Provence
3 Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Aix en Provence
4 GR - Géosciences Rennes
5 PALEVOPRIM - Laboratoire de paléontologie, évolution, paléoécosystèmes, paléoprimatologie
6 Palaios association

The presence of “geological” amber (or “succin” in old French monographs) has been reported for several centuries in Provence in the Mesozoic deposits of Provence, southeastern France. Diverse amber-bearing sites have been inventoried but their location and precise age remained unclear for most of them. In the past decades, various data concerning chemistry, palaeontological content and comparison with archaeological improved our knowledge of the ambers of the region, but only of Cretaceous age. The present review of the amber-bearing deposits of Provence, including the discovery of new sites, highlights the amber potential of Provence and allow to consider a wide range times, from the lower Cretaceous to the Miocene.

Domains: Paleontology

Jean-Paul Saint Martin, Yves Dutour, Luc Ebbo, Bruno Mazières, Didier Néraudeau, et al.. Reassessment of amber-bearing deposits of Provence, southeastern France. Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, 2021, 192, pp.5. ⟨10.1051/bsgf/2020048⟩. ⟨insu-03097703⟩