Beckerite

A hard, fossilised, brownish resin found with Prussian amber.

In the 1990s, a phase of confusion began as a result of siegburgite being confused with beckerite. Pieszczek described beckerite in 1880 based on finds from Samland. Extreme toughness, which made it very difficult to pulverize, was mentioned as a special feature of this light grey-brown resin with a dull surface in a nodular and lamellar shape and with frequent wood impressions. In addition, the absence of succinic acid was noted. In Fuhrmann and Borsdorf (1986), a publication on the types of amber from the Bitterfeld amber deposit, one of the fossil resins was referred to as beckerite, in particular because of the great toughness and the external appearance of the finds. A significant proportion of aromatic compounds was detected by the infrared spectrum, similar to that of siegburgite. Infrared spectroscopic investigations of pieces from various scientific collections designated as beckerite revealed that this evidence material does not contain any aromatic compounds and rather consists of heavily contaminated succinite. This led to the assumption that the Bitterfeld resin with aromatic components could be siegburgite and not beckerite. Attempts to provide direct proof by comparing the infrared spectra of the resins from Siegburg and Bitterfeld failed due to the high proportion of foreign components in the Siegburg material. Now that infrared spectra of pure resin substances are available, it has been proven without a doubt that the resin from Bitterfeld is not siegburgite and this is also proven by the different physical properties (Vavra, 2008). So far, there is only one definite locality of siegburgite.