Fossil Fuels

Three types of fossil fuel: coal, crude oil and natural gas.

  • Stored solar energy.
  • Harnessed by photosynthesis.
  • Stored in organic matter, mostly plants.
  • Partial decomposition of the organic matter.
  • Burial in sediments.
    • Occurs in large basins where erosion deposits sediments & organic matter.
    • Buried to at least than 500 meters.
  • Exposed to high temperature and high pressure.
  • Chemically altered.
    • Sediments are compressed.
    • Slowly, organic matter becomes fossil fuels.
  • Organic rich sediment is a source rock for fossil fuels.
  • Transformation to oil and gas, the organic matter becomes much less dense.
  • Rises due to lower density.
  • Rises to a reservoir rock, a rock with pour spaces that can store oil and gas.
  • Capped by a rock that is fine grained with small pore spaces.
  • A trap is a structure in the rock that capture and concentrate.
    • Produced by tectonic activity.
  • They are non-renewable resources that we use them faster than they are produced.
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