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Oil is a fossil fuel, everyone knows that. And fossil fuels come from old dinosaur bones and bodies that broke down millions of years ago and turned into oil, right?
No! This is a myth that has been around for a very long time, but it is not true and it never has been. Geologist Reidar Muller from the University of Oslo talked to Science Norway about this, saying:
“For some strange reason, the idea that oil comes from dinosaurs has stuck with many people. But oil comes from trillions of tiny algae and plankton.”
The current scientific theory is that over the course of hundreds of millions of years, algae, plankton, and other organic sea life died and sank to the bottom of the sea. Once at the bottom of the oceans, they were covered up by layers of sediment over the course of time. This placed pressure on the organic matter, and sealed out oxygen.
In that environment, the organic matter was ‘cooked’ to become the oil that we see today. It has been stuck down deep in the Earth for millions of years with no way to escape, until humans drilled down to get it.
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This is also why oil is found at many different levels underground depending on when and where the organic material built up. Also, oil from deep under the ground is pressured to move up, so when there are cracks in the tectonic plates or other rocks in the area, it may be able to accumulate higher up away from the core of the Earth than would otherwise be possible.
Of course, this is just one theory of how the oil got there. Another theory is that oil is a natural byproduct of the activity that is going on near the center of the Earth where the temperatures are so high. Rocks and other elements are melted, mixed, and moved up where they harden many times over the course of time. In some cases, this results in oil being produced, which is then pushed up through the layers of Earth until it reaches a point where it settles (or humans pump it up). Or at least that is another theory that is getting attention in recent years.
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Whether one of these ideas, or something else entirely, resulted in the creation of oil, it is certain that the gas in your car didn’t come from a T-Rex that got caught in a landslide millions of years ago.
If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.
Categories: ANIMALS, SCI/TECH
Tags: · algae, dinosaurs, fossil fuels, gas, making oil, natural gas, oil, plankton, science, single topic, top