| Rare and unique macroscopic blebs of Carboniferous (320 mya) age amber (fossil wound resin) have been extracted from an Illinois coal and analyzed using Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC-MS). Results indicate that the macroscopic ambers in these deposits may be classified as mature Class Ic ambers, and contain many diterpenoids associated with modern and fossil resins. Resinite extracted from the same Illinois coal using density gradient centrifugation (DGC) techniques has also been analyzed using Py-GC-MS, and may be classified as mature Class Ib amber. Class assignments are based on the identification of labdanoid decarboxylation products and comparison of retention times with well known references. These data show that primitive gymnosperms were chemically sophisticated and possibly utilized varied types of complex terpenoid wound resins. These ambers, although highly matured, are similar to modern resins, which suggests that vascular plants rapidly evolved the ability to produce complex polylabdanoid resins, and that the synthetic mechanisms have been retained in both angiosperms and gymnosperms since the Carboniferous. These ambers represent the oldest ambers to date to yield useful chemotaxonomic data, and are the first documented unequivocal ambers from the Carboniferous. |
