Oise amber
Oise amber is fossil resin found near the Oise River by Creil in northern France. It is about 53 million years old (the Early Eocene) and is softer than Baltic amber, though older. The amber comes from resin-producing trees related to those that created Baltic amber.
The deposit is famous for its many inclusions—more than 20,000 arthropods have been found. It was discovered in the late 1990s by entomologist Gaël de Ploëg near Le Quesnoy, at the bottom of sand and gravel quarries. In 2000, pollen was found inside the amber, and a unique chemical called quesnoin was identified, similar to resin from a modern Amazon tree (Hymenaea oblongifolia), suggesting related source trees.
Geologically, Oise amber comes from the Argiles d’lignite du Soissonnais in the Paris Basin, formed where channels cut into older greensand deposits from the Late Paleocene. The beds are clay-rich sands with two main subfacies: one rich in pyrite, lignite, and amber; the other with less lignite and remains of land animals. Coprolites (fossil dung) are also found there.
The amber pieces are clear yellow and usually a few centimeters long, with at least one inclusion in every flow. The resin is thought to come from an angiosperm tree named Aulacoxylon sparnacense, likely in the Fabaceae family.
Insects dominate the finds. Beetles and booklice each make up about 21% of identified insects (as of 2009), followed by wasps and other Hymenoptera (16%), flies (12%), and true bugs (10%). By 2010, Oise amber had fewer described species than Baltic, Dominican, or New Jersey ambers.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:01 (CET).