This plankton consists of animals, called zooplankton, or plants, called phytoplankton. This material then lands on the ocean floor and mixes with inorganic material that enters the ocean by rivers. It is this sediment on the ocean floor that then forms oil over many years.
FOSSIL FUELS FORM. After millions of years underground, the compounds that make up plankton and plants turn into fossil fuels. Plankton decomposes into natural gas and oil, while plants become coal. Today, humans extract these resources through coal mining and the drilling of oil and gas wells on land and offshore.
Millions of years ago, algae and plants lived in shallow seas. After dying and sinking to the seafloor, the organic material mixed with other sediments and was buried. Over millions of years under high pressure and high temperature, the remains of these organisms transformed into what we know today as fossil fuels.
When animals and plants (such as plankton) died over millions of years ago in the oceans, they fell to the bottom of the ocean and decayed anaerobically in mud over millions of years under high pressure and temperature. This organic matter, called ancient biomass, turned into crude oil and became stored within rocks.
Years ago, when prehistoric animals and plants died, layers of rock and dirt gradually buried them. Over millions of years, heat and pressure from Earth's crust decomposed these organisms into one of the three main kinds of fuel: oil (also called petroleum), natural gas, or coal.
The sand and silt eventually changed to rock and the resulting heat and pressure turned the organic materials (not former dinosaurs) to oil, gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). In cooking up these hydrocarbons, the thick liquid called oil formed first.
Global consumption of oil is currently estimated at roughly 96.5 million barrels per day. According to OPEC, global demand is expected to reach 109 million barrels per day. Estimations vary slightly, but it is predicted that - if demand forecasts hold - we will run out of oil from known reserves in about 47 years.
World Oil Reserves
The world has proven reserves equivalent to 46.6 times its annual consumption levels. This means it has about 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).
Petroleum is made from aquatic phytoplankton and zooplankton, and because petroleum is created by biomass, plastic also is a form of biomass.
Virtually all marine phytoplankton small particles of oil to increase their buoyancy and live in the upper part of the water column (the epipelagic zone.)
The first oil had actually been discovered by the Chinese in 600 B.C. and transported in pipelines made from bamboo. However, Colonel Drake's heralded discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1859 and the Spindletop discovery in Texas in 1901 set the stage for the new oil economy.
70% of oil deposits existing today were formed in the Mesozoic age (252 to 66 million years ago), 20% were formed in the Cenozoic age (65 million years ago), and only 10% were formed in the Paleozoic age (541 to 252 million years ago).
At extreme temperatures and pressures, oil can form without organic material. Petroleum - the archetypal fossil fuel - couldn't have formed from the remains of dead animals and plants, claim US and Russian researchers1. They argue that petroleum originated from minerals at extreme temperatures and pressures.
Formation and exploration of fossil fuels
Gas and oil form in the sea over a period of millions of years, as the remains of animals and plants sink to the ocean floor. Combined with particles flushed from the land, they are buried and compressed into layers of sediment several kilometres thick on the ocean floor.
When blooms eventually exhaust their nutrients, the phytoplankton die, sink and decompose. The decomposition process depletes surrounding waters of available oxygen, which marine animals need to survive.
Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world with more than 300 billion barrels in reserve. Saudi Arabia has the second-largest amount of oil reserves in the world with 297.5 billion barrels.
Deep in the Earth, oil and natural gas are formed from organic matter from dead plants and animals. These hydrocarbons take millions of years to form under very specific pressure and temperature conditions.
In fact, there are at least seven species of bacteria that can survive solely on oil [1]. These bacteria are nature's way of removing oil that ends up in the ocean, whether the oil is there because of oil spills or natural oil seeps.
Australia is a net importer of oil and imports a large proportion of its refinery feedstocks. Most of Australia's oil is produced on the North West Shelf, some distance from domestic east coast refining capacity.
Australia has proven reserves equivalent to 2.9 times its annual consumption. This means that, without imports, there would be about 3 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).
WASHINGTON—Excluding the United States, the world holds an estimated 565 billion barrels (bbo) of undiscovered, technically recoverable conventional oil; 5,606 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of undiscovered, technically recoverable conventional natural gas; and 167 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable ...
Energy. A sudden loss of oil supplies would make it impossible to meet world energy needs. Countries have very varying stocks of natural gas which they could tap, and Johansen says such resources would be quickly depleted.
Oil Reserves in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has proven reserves equivalent to 221.2 times its annual consumption. This means that, without Net Exports, there would be about 221 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).
BP says demand for oil and gas will drop dramatically by 2050 in 'decisive shift' The share of fossil fuels as a primary energy source will fall from 80 percent in 2019 to between 55 and 20 percent by 2050, according to BP's annual energy outlook report.