Copal

Copal or copal is a collective term for tree resins of different botanical origin, which are used as incense and for high-quality paints and varnishes.

Term

The word comes from the Mexican- Indian parlance: As copalli here transparent resins were called. The designation stands in the Aztec language but also for incense.

In ancient times, and some still today in the English speaking Copale were also called Animé.

Delineation of copal resin and amber to

Copal is a semi- fossil, natural resin as opposed to fresh resin has a much greater hardness and thus a higher melting point.

In contrast to Bernstein, whose age measures after millions of years, it is at Copal - at least in the most common definition of this term - to hardened subfossiles resin, which is usually between a few decades and a few thousand years old. To acetone or a similar solvent dropping on Copal, then forms a greasy - sticky surface, while amber is not dissolved. Also, the melting point of Bernstein is (200 to 380 ° C) well above the Copals ( below 150 ° C).

In the 1990s an attempt was made, using scientific methods to classify resins, copal and amber due to their chemical properties. In addition to the ingredients, the degree of polymerization of the resin sample tested is important. The results of these analyzes suggest that " [ ... ] it is in essence useless to attempt to try to determine the age of organic material in sediments only by chemical analysis [ ... ] " because of the extent of chemical transformation processes by various influences is determined and thus resins of the same age may have different developmental stages that lead to different results of the chemical analyzes. However, the results also suggest that the recent Copal resin is much closer than the amber and mounted even doubt appear if Copal should be called a subfossiles resin.

The question of the age band of Copal is answered in science continue to differ. Unique is just that the polymerization at copal is not complete, with Bernstein does. The transitions between rezentem resin and copal and between Copal and amber are fluid. For the layman who has neither the equipment to conduct elaborate chemical analysis of resin samples, nor the expertise to interpret the results of such investigations, leaving only the above mentioned tests. Trade names are often unreliable and misleading.

In scientific literature, inter alia, for the foregoing reasons, in general, the term "resin" or " fossil resin " is used. Terms such as " amber " or " Copal " are considered in the scientific sense indefinite colloquial or commercially common names.

Botanical origin

The extraction is carried out from both deciduous trees ( Hymenaea ) and coniferous trees such as the New Zealand Kaurifichte, a Araukariengewächs. But there are also Copale commercially whose botanical origin is not easily categorized easily, for example if the subfossil resin from the roots of the resin -producing trees have fallen into the soil, from which it is only supported if the trees are long gone. Likewise, Copal can be located, for example, by Verschwemmung, such as amber, from secondary deposits.

Organic inclusions

Similar amber Copale also sometimes contain organic inclusions, such as insects, or plant parts. These inclusions in copal arise in the same way as amber inclusions. In contrast to these inclusions are preserved much better in Copal due to their low age mostly. Basically, unlike amber inclusions have a realistic chance to isolate from preserved tissues of Copal inclusions DNA. In view of the fact that, despite their low age and extinct species are among the few inclusions that have been scientifically investigated specifically from Copal, see quite a few Paläoentomologen precisely in this aspect a weighty reason to drive forward research on Copal inclusions. In particular, Copal from Madagascar and Colombia reached here in the focus of research. Another aspect of the field led to devote to the study of inclusions in copal, lies in the fact that Copal is obtained sometimes in huge pieces that can contain a wealth of inclusions. The variety of forms of hundreds of inclusions in a single piece, organisms that were included virtually in the same minute and the same habitat shared with each other, allows conclusions to the communities at the time of resin formation and provides an opportunity now to reconstruct extinct habitats.

Use

In the period 1853-1970 were in New Zealand more than 100,000 tons of subfossil kauri resin ( Kauri Copal ) promoted. The biggest part of it was exported to England and the USA where the raw material in the production of paints and varnishes used, but was also used arts and crafts. The highlight of the export of 10,000 tonnes was reached in 1905. The New Zealand Copal occurrences have been used extensively by the Maori, who reached the archipelago around 800 years before the first Europeans. So Copal was used as fuel and the smoke used against various insects. With the juice of one our Saudi position similar plant mixed, Copal was chewed for the care of the teeth; ground into powder and mixed with an oil Copal served as an antiseptic for treating wounds. In the manufacture of colors for the tattoos of the Maori burned Copal played a role.

In Mexico, Copal has the same value as for us, the incense. Copal the Maya used for the preparation of the pigment of Maya blue indigo and palygorskite. The once very widely used in the paint and varnish production is now reduced to very high-quality instruments and boat paints. In the food industry copal is used today as a dye carrier and sealing material for the industrial production of eggs.

Subfossil Copale were and are still isolated as the basis of high-quality paints in use.

Then as now, the value of the Copals depends on its hardness from the harder ( and, consequently, the higher the melting point), the higher quality.

Despite its amber -like optical properties Copal has been playing because of its relatively low hardness as raw material for the manufacture of jewelry only a subordinate role. At the beginning of the 20th century Copale were processed from the Congo by the Belgian company " Ebena " from Wijnegem to high quality jewelry boxes that were decorated with carvings and gold leaf editions.

Copal is sometimes. Suitable base for embedding organisms (mostly vertebrates, lizards often ) used These sometimes are difficult to identify " reconstructions " go often as Fake designer amber inclusions in the trade.

Species

Types of Copal, for example,

• Copal oro, from the resin of Icica icicariba ( Burseraceae ), according to other sources of Hymenaea courbaril and probably H. oblongifolia var palustris; Deposits in South and Central America, mainly the Amazon Basin (Brazil) and Colombia;
• Copal Negro, from the resin of Protium copal or Bursera microphylla Bursera graveolens and ( Burseraceae ) in Mexico;
• Copal blanco from the resin of Bursera bipinnata ( Burseraceae ) or protium crassipetalum in Mexico;
• Manila copal, from the resin of the Philippine Kauri pine or agathis Dammartanne dammara ( Araucariaceae ); referred to in other sources Agathis alba ( it is the same species );
• Dammar Copal, from the resin of Dammarbaumes ( Shorea wiesneri ) from the family of wing fruit plants; from Indonesia. A distinction is made between white and brown damar. White Dammer is obtained by Lebendharzung while brown damar has withdrawn from natural root openings and has been a while located in the ground and thus to that in contrast to white dammar as a subfossiles resin or copal in the strict sense can be considered.
• Kauri Copal (also kauri resin) from the resin of Agathis australis ( Araucariaceae ) in New Zealand;
• Zanzibar, Mozambique and Madagascar Copal, from the resin of Hymenaea verrucosa ( copalier );
• Akrakopal, Sierra Leone, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Angola and Benguela copal. As the resin dispenser ( at least for Copal from the Congo and from Sierra Leone ) applies legume Copaifera guibourthiana

More Copalvorkommen with organic inclusions are known from Allendale, Victora (Australia ); Minzunami, Japan. The latter applies with an age of 33,000 years as the oldest Kopallagerstätte.

The Colombian resin is often offered as Amber in the trade. Its age is hotly debated, although the 14C dating of a sample of this material showed an age of less than 250 years, its classification is as Bernstein therefore excluded

Copalin and Copalit

A fossil resin with the reminiscent of Copal name Copalin (English copa line ) or Copalit (English copalite ) is from the London Clay Formation ( Ypresium, Lower Eocene ) from Highgate Hill known in north London. Due to the age of the formation ( around 50 million years) and due to the fact that (fossil ) resins can not be younger than the matrix in which they are found, but it is a " mature " fossil resin ( Bernstein), as its botanical source, a tree of the family incense tree family ( Burseraceae ) is assumed. Under the same name ( " Copalin " ) is used in the literature to be approximately 50 million years old fossil resin ( also, not Amber Copal ) mentioned from the Greifensteiner sandstone in Austria. Reminiscent of Copal names go back to the fact that the composition of a found in Austria fossil resin was compared to the late 19th century with that of the Eocene resin from London and both had a certain similarity to Copal. Later this name by other authors was also applied to fossil resins other Austrian localities, so that mentioned in the literature a wide variety of fossil resins, which have all but nothing to do with Copal, under this name.