Fossil plant materials

Amber is the fossilized resin (sap) from plants. Fossilization occurs when a specimen of plant resin is buried and gradually becomes compressed and partially dehydrated. Partially fossilized resin is called copal, which is less dense and softer than true amber. 

Modem plant resins are often substituted for true amber, and it is often difficult to tell the difference. Some trees and shmbs will produce copious amounts of resin if wounded, so people will purposefully cut into the outside of a plant. Kauri gum is probably the most common resin collected this way. When the 

Amber can be found in rocks dating back to the Mesozoic era, about 80 million years ago. There undoubtedly were deposits of plant resin before that time, but they have failed to survive to this day. This may be due to the gradual breakdown of the hydrocarbons that constitute most amber, as well as its dehydration after burial. 

Amber can be formed by any plant that produces sap or resin. It is not specific to pine trees, as is commonly believed. The amber found in the Baltic region of Eastern Europe was indeed formed in a huge pine forest that covered that area about 10 million years ago, during the Miocene Epoch. Much of today s commercial amber is mined in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. These deposits are older than the European amber, and were formed by large shrubs in the Pea family. 

Some amber has been given common or commercial names based on the locality from which it comes. For example, Burmite is from Myanmar (formerly Burma), Rumanite comes from the Carpathian region of Romania, and Simetite is from the Simeto River area in Sicily. 

---

Jet is the common name given to black, high-quality, homogeneous specimens of lignite coal. Fossilized plant material, coal consists of a complex mixture of hydrocarbon compounds, water, and small amounts of other elements, usually sulfur. It is very soft and has a very low density. As it is coal, it is also flammable. 

Montan and ozocerite are two wax compounds found associated with fossilized plant material. Historically, these compounds have been found in coal deposits and exploited without much processing. They are now produced as by-products of the processing of lignite and sub-bituminous coal. 

Metamorphism Chemical changes responsible for the conversion of fossil plant materials to coal. 

Starch and cellulose are potentially important renewable resources for chemical production. Glucose (a component of starch) is relatively easy to obtain from plant material and is used to synthesize existing chemicals. While this is so, the production of such renewable materials, a full fife-cycle assessment of the requirements for their production suggest that much fossil-soiuced energy and material would stiU be employed in the growing, harvesting and processing of biomass. 

Liptinites were made up of hydrogen-rich hydrocarbons derived from spores, pollens, cuticles, and resins in the original plant material. Vitrinites were made up of wood, bark, and roots and contained less hydrogen than the liptinites. Inertinites are mainly oxidation products of the other macerals and are consequently richer in carbon. The inertinite group includes fusinite, most of which is fossil charcoal, derived from ancient peat fires. 

The major fossil fuels are coal and petroleum. Marine organisms were typically deposited in mud and under water, where anaerobic decay occurred. The major decomposition products are hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, water, and ammonium. These deposits form much of the basis for our petroleum resources. Many of these deposits are situated so that the evaporation of the more volatile products such as water and ammonia occurred, giving petroleum resources with little nitrogen- or oxygen-containing products. By comparison, coal is formed from plant material that has decayed to graphite carbon and methane. 

Montan wax is a fossil plant wax with properties similar to natural plant waxes such as those found in carnauba palms. The material is a hard and has a high melting point. Montan wax is composed of a mixture of waxes, resins, and asphaltene-like materials. The wax is typically used in carbon inks, emulsions, polishes, and lubricants. 

Does biomass sound reminiscent of fossil fuels It should, because biomass is simply a fossil fuel without the fossil—dead plant material that has yet to turn into coal, petroleum, or natural gas. Just about anything you can do with fossil fuels, you can do with biomass, except, of course, deplete it and create as much pollution. 

In 1999, two American biochemical engineers with experience in microbial enzymology and genetics, both in the academic and the industrial world, Gerngross and Slater [62], were delighted with an executive order issued by former President Clinton. The order insisted that researchers should work toward replacing fossil resources with plant material both as raw material and fuel. Both men had a lot of experience in growing plastic in plants. This sounds like fiction, but it is not. Their dreams seemed to come true because... 

Four of the five colleries in which hydrogen sulfide in seam gas has been studied (Southern and Collinsville) or reported (Oaky Creek, Hebburn II and Gregory) are located in the Bowen Basin. Is this a coincidence or a reflection on either the composition of available plant material and/or the depositional environment With regard to the former, (Moelle, K.H.R., University of Newcastle, personal communication, 1989) has reported the detection of plant fossils of the families Neuropteris, Lonchopteris and Sphenopteris in European sapropelic mudstone/torbanites of Carboniferous age where hydrogen sulfide concentrations occur. 

Today, an international awareness of the increasing C02 concentration in the atmosphere has resulted in the formation of the Kyoto Protocol, which has led many countries to make the commitment to decrease the emission of C02. One way of decreasing C02 emissions could be substitution of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. The net production of C02 is significantly lower when bioethanol produced from plant materials is used as transportation fuel instead of fossil fuels, since C02 is assimilated... 

Jet is actually just a very hard and dense kind of lignite coal. It was probably plant material millions of years ago that has become fossilized and blackened over time. It often comes from northeast England, where it is derived from fossil driftwood buried under the sea. Its primary drawback as a gemstone is that it will burn (since it is basically just highly polished coal), see also Glass Minerals. 

Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group Decarbonized Fuel Plants Utilizing Inorganic Membranes for Hydrogen Separation presented at the 12th Annual Conference of Fossil Energy Materials, May 12-14, 1998, Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Fossil based raw materials, mainly oil, gas and occasionally coal, are used almost exclusively for the manufacture of monomers. Plant materials, the so-called renewable resources, have been used earlier and could become more significant once again in the future. Although the plastics in these cases are obtained by direct polymerization of their monomers, the synthesis of the monomers themselves often requires several intermediate steps. The multi-functional multiple intermediate compounds in the plastic synthesis steps cannot be clearly defined as monomers in every case. The poly-con-... 

---