Kuji Amber Onsen

Kuji Amber Onsen is found in Kuji City in northern Iwate Prefecture, Japan's most important source of amber, the fossilized pine resin known in Japanese as kohaku whose deposits in the Cretaceous-era sedimentary formations of the Kuji coast represent the finest and most abundant amber resource in the Japanese archipelago, with specimens of exceptional clarity preserving 85-million-year-old insects, plant material, and other prehistoric organisms in their golden matrix. The Kuji Amber Museum dedicated to the city's geological heritage displays specimens of remarkable scientific and aesthetic value and traces the amber trade routes that connected the Tohoku coast to ancient Japanese and continental cultures who prized the material for its mysterious luminous quality and perceived supernatural protective properties. The warm mineral thermal waters here provide relaxation in a city whose geological riches from the deep Cretaceous past surface not only in its celebrated amber mines but in the geothermal energy that warms the community's bathing culture on the remote northern Iwate coast.