(Black, 1919). The blue earth is a marine deposit of late 
Kocene to early Oligocene age, according to the paleon- 
tologic evidence. Most commonly the deposit is assigned 
to an early Oligocene age (Czeczott, 1960). Czeczott has 
inferred that, because the amber is considered to be re- 
worked, it must be somewhat older than Oligocene and 
hence Eocene in age. Nevertheless, Kirchner (1950) has 
reported the occurrence of coral polyps and other marine 
organisms in some specimens of amber, indicating that 
the resin had not hardened before entering the marine 
environment. This suggests that no significant amount 
of time was involved in the transportation of at least some 
of the amber, and that therefore, geologically speaking, 
it is of the same age as the enclosing beds. Thus it appears 
that reworking prior to the amber’s deposition in the blue 
earth and immediately adjacent beds may have been over- 
emphasized in the literature. Suggestions such as those 
by Black (1919) and Czeczott (1960) seem to indicate 
the transportation of essentially contemporaneous detri- 
tal materials from land into the marine environment, a 
process which, geologically speaking, is essentially con- 
tem poraneous. 
Amber from Schleswig-Holstein has been given a Mio- 
cene age. Wetzel (1939) thought that this amber in the 
western Baltic region was formed from trees on a sepa- 
rate land mass from that in the eastern area. Andrée 
(1942), on the other hand, concluded that the amber was 
formed during the Oligocene in the eastern Baltic area 
and that it was transported and reworked into the Mio- 
cene deposits in the western area. 
Carvings of amber, and especially beads found in caves 
and tombs, indicate its significance in human activities 
since the Stone Ages (Williamson, 1932). Amber trade 
routes crossed Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic 
and Black Seas in the Bronze and [ron Ages, as well as 
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