Amber can be dark brown to pale yellow, orange, red, whitish, greenish, bluish, or violetish. The most common colors are orange, yellow and brown; the other colors are usually caused by light interference of bubbles of air inside the material. Natural amber is generally "led "block amber" and includes the following types: cloudy or bastard amber contains many small bubbles; fatty amber is translucent, also full of small bubbles and resembles fat; clear amber is transparent. Some amber is mined, rather than recovered from seashores; this has been termed "pit amber."

So-called "bone amber" is opaque an soft, resembling bone or ivory. Exposure to sun and sea water may cause amber to turn opaque and chalky, with a "foamy" or frothy appearance.

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Extensive deposits of amber are found on the shores of the Baltic Se Much amber is recovered at the shore, but considerable amounts a mined. The amber washed ashore is released at the sea bottom from the sediments in which it has been preserved. These sediments are millions of years old. Since amber sometimes contains the remains of insects that were trapped in the sticky tree sap of an ancient pine tree, we may thus learn something about ancient insect life by studying amber that formed at different times.