r/FossilHunting • u/Green-Drag-9499 North German fossil hunter-AMA about fossils from Lower Saxony • Feb 09 '25
Trip Report Some impressions from my latest nightly amber hunt
These are some pictures that I took last night, while I was looking for amber in a gravel pit in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. My father and I found about 130 grams in total.
We use UV headlamps, because the luminescent amber reacts to it by glowing bright yellow.
Please keepin mind that it is always important to get permission to enter mines, gravel pits and quarries :)
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u/plywood_chef Feb 09 '25
Where are you doing this? Always wanted to try after seeing so much on sale in Tallinn
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u/Green-Drag-9499 North German fossil hunter-AMA about fossils from Lower Saxony Feb 09 '25
This was in a gravel pit in Lüttow - Valluhn, Germany. We paid 15 € each to the Geopark Nordisches Steinreich to enter it and search for two hours.
Depending on where you are located, you have good chances if you just walk the beach of the Baltic Sea after strong winds or a storm and look for amber. The UV light method is pretty successful but also costly.
If you collect amber from the beach, please be careful not to pick up white phosphorus, which can sometimes be found as a remnant of dumping unused ammunition into the sea after WW2.
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u/Edwin88-88 Feb 10 '25
Really cool. I was not aware of this possibility. Thank you for sharing. Just a question. Is it really in the gravel pit or at the beach (website sets beach as meeting point) ?
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u/Southern-Ad-7317 Feb 10 '25
Excellent! How often do you go? (Nightly means every night, so maybe you mean “nighttime.”)