the.com/fossil fuel
sunlight, buried for 300 million years, cashed in all at once.
means a carbon-rich fuel formed from ancient organic matter compressed underground over geologic time, burned today for energy.
from the term traces to 17th-18th century natural philosophers who noticed coal and oil seemed to be literal fossils of dead plants and plankton, not minerals born from rock like everything else.
formation timeneeds 50 to 300 million years to form
burn ratehumans burn a million years of deposits annually
oil originmostly ancient marine plankton, not dinosaurs
coal originswamp forests from the carboniferous period
for instance
ghawar field — saudi arabia, largest oil field, discovered 1948
pennsylvania anthracite — fueled the us industrial revolution from the 1820s
north sea oil — powered uk economy from the 1970s onward
appalachian coal seams — carboniferous swamps, 300 million years compressed