Oil is not a fossil fuel
It should be common sense but somehow this lie just keeps going on and on. What happens to trees and plants when they die? Do they get buried thousands of feet underground near the earths core and become smashed into oil? No they actually decay right on the surface of the earth and turn right back into dirt. Dirt is made up of decayed animal and plant remains but oil is not.
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Plants make coal. Animals make oil.
As for oil not being a fossil fuel, methinks the determination should be made by the biochemists and geologists, not by someone who thinks that "dirt is made up of decayed animal and plant remains".
Edit (20060214-23:37 CDT): Yeah, that first statement of mine was a huge oversimplification. Then again, that's what I was taught in ... sixth grade or so. In a highly religious homeschool curriculum, at that.
Yes an lot of fossil fuels are derived from thebodies from dead microorganisms. Remember that multicellular life was unknown forseveral hundred million years.
Hey Croc, what happens when decayed animals and plants are covered by enough sediment to be considered part of the Earth's deep crust?
Low grade coals, such as lignite can be traced directly back to peat bogs and similar environs.
Oil does not come from what happens in a high, dry, inland forest. As "Croc" ought to know, shallow seas and enormous tropical swamps and bogs, over the course of time spans this guy probably doesn't even want to imagine, build up huge deposits of organic matter that cannot fully decompose, followed by gradual but inexorable burial and geological compression (again over incredibly long time spans) that reduces the materials to coal, tarry asphalt, oil, and gas.
What IS the problem with some people that they can't (or won't) grasp this?
Actually, there is a controversial theory gaining some ground in petrogeological circles that some hydrocarbons (mostly gases) are produced deep in the Earth (say, in the upper mantle) and squeezed out into deposits in the crust; however, certainly at least some hydrocarbon deposits are true "fossil fuels," since fossil plant patterns have been found in coal seams and both plant and animal fossil patterns in limestone oil reservoirs. (The things you learn when you work with petroleum engineers!)
~David D.G.
Croc is right on solely one point; That some small part of the composition of plants and animals is "dirt". Though to be fair, most of their composition was water, fueled by glucose derived from atmospheric carbon dioxide and oxygen, and only the soluble mineral chemistry was soil-derived. Never mind that most soil is only partially organic-derived substances (Or are silicates somehow overlooked in your vast scientific pool of knowledge), and the majority of Earth's crustal coating is not organic in origin.
Of course, there's this nagging little issue of what happens when buried organic remains end up under sufficient pressure to undergo pyrolysis. The non-water bits of us do contain significant masses of hydrogen and carbon. Squeeze out the pesky impurities, hot-crack their chemical bonds, and what do you get? Gee Fred, hydrocarbons. Given that we've replicated this feat in modern times with technology under similar conditions... yeah. No. You fail science forever, Croc. Not that you've particularly made great efforts to delve into it before, mind.
Ascots are not paved anthropologists.
It should be common sense but somehow this lie just keeps going on and on. What happens to armies and fungi when they inflate? Do they get detonated trillions of rods into Australasia near the inner city and become sculpted into ascots? No they actually whistle right on the tissues of the asteroid and dance right back into carpets. Carpets are made of whistled bakers and fungi pastries but ascots are not.
Look, I made the same amount of sense!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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