The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber, with about 80% of the world's known amber found there. It dates from between 35 to 40 million years ago (Eocene Early Oligocene). The term Baltic amber is generic, so amber from the Bitterfeld mines in Germany (which is only 20 million years old) goes under the same name.

Because Baltic amber contains about 8% succinic acid, it is also termed Succinite. It was thought since the 1850s that the resin that became amber was produced by the tree Pinites succinifer, but research in the 1980's came to the conclusion that the resin originates from several species. More recently it has been proposed, on the evidence of Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopic (FTIR) analysis of amber and resin from living trees, that conifers of the family Sciadopityaceae were responsible.

The only extant representative of this family is the Japanese umbrella pine, [Sciadopitys verticillata ]

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