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The ancient age, stable composition and structure, as well as the beautiful and rare appearance of these mysterious amber pieces, indicate significant geological and gemological importance. Amber is a chemically complex fossil resin in which provenance, geological age, and maturity are related but not equivalent attributes. To explore whether these dimensions can be preliminarily differentiated, this study applies a multi-spectroscopic strategy combining FTIR, Raman, and excitation-emission matrix fluorescence spectroscopy. FTIR data, analyzed with region-based comparison, PCA, and clustering, showed the strongest potential for distinguishing provenance and broad age-associated grouping. Raman spectroscopy focused on the characteristic bands near 1450 and 1650 cm⁻¹, and the intensity ratio between these peaks provided a preliminary structural proxy related to maturity-associated variation. EEM spectroscopy, further resolved by PARAFAC analysis, identified latent fluorescent components that may reflect fluorophore evolution, oxidation-related change, and chemical microenvironment. Although the Raman- and EEM-based rankings were not fully identical, they captured chemically related but non-equivalent aspects of amber evolution. Together, these results support the feasibility of a preliminary multi-spectroscopic framework for amber evaluation. This work highlights that provenance, age, and maturity should be considered separately when interpreting amber spectra, while also emphasizing the need for broader sampling and independent compositional validation.

For additional information, please contact Miss FEI Wenyi, feiwy@connect.hku.hk.