{"id":789536,"date":"2026-07-28T15:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/789536\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T15:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:32:11","slug":"china-team-unearths-worlds-oldest-amber-hidden-in-ancient-xinjiang-coal-seam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/789536\/","title":{"rendered":"China team unearths world\u2019s oldest amber, hidden in ancient Xinjiang coal seam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/science?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chinese scientists<\/a> have uncovered the world\u2019s oldest verified amber in the northwestern Xinjiang region, revealing that ancient plants were producing protective resin 385 million years ago, long before most animal groups had emerged to damage them.The amber \u2013 discovered in coal seams in West Junggar, part of <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/science\/article\/3184079\/footprints-china-show-dinosaurs-came-cold-rule-world-say?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">an ancient zone<\/a> where tectonic plates collided, grew and merged \u2013 pushes back the record by roughly 65 million years and challenges some long-held assumptions about the origins of plant resins.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Until now, the oldest known amber to have been isolated from rock and confirmed through chemical analysis dated to the Late Carboniferous period, around 320 million years ago, when the first herbivores also emerged.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The researchers, led by Luo Cihang, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences\u2019 Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, detailed their findings in a paper published by the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances on July 15.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">According to the paper, the palaeontologists were initially sceptical when they found hundreds of microscopic pieces of what appeared to be amber preserved in a coal seam dating from the Middle Devonian period around 393 million to 383 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"When the Chinese scientists observed what appeared to be pieces of amber embedded in the coal seam they were studying, their first reaction was excitement, followed by caution. Photo: Handout\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/dabbc439-6fbd-414e-ac97-c7b89f5b535a_948cd60c.jpg\" title=\"When the Chinese scientists observed what appeared to be pieces of amber embedded in the coal seam they were studying, their first reaction was excitement, followed by caution. Photo: Handout\"\/>When the Chinese scientists observed what appeared to be pieces of amber embedded in the coal seam they were studying, their first reaction was excitement, followed by caution. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">When Luo and his team travelled to Xinjiang in 2019, they did not expect the fossil samples they planned to examine and collect from the region\u2019s unusual coal seam would yield the world\u2019s oldest known amber, the paper said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese scientists have uncovered the world\u2019s oldest verified amber in the northwestern Xinjiang region, revealing that ancient plants&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[154263,335735,144,6122,328598,335737,335736,335732,335733,335738,79,262397,335739,33670,335734,45899],"class_list":["post-789536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-amber","tag-ancient-plants","tag-china","tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","tag-devonian","tag-luo-cihang","tag-middle-devonian","tag-nanjing-institute-of-geology-and-palaeontology","tag-plant-resins","tag-resin-production","tag-science","tag-science-advances","tag-seed-plants","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-west-junggar","tag-xinjiang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}