No oil is stored sunlight kept preserved by the heat and pressure of specific geological conditions. It takes over a ton of prehistoric biomass to make a single liter of liquid crude oil. Algae grew in salt water, died sank to the ocean floor where It was and for a large portion of the ocean still is O2 deficient which means the organic matter does not decay so it piles up by the thousands of meters thick over geologic time. The current deposition rates in the black Sea for example is 2mm per year over a million years which is a blip in geologic time you will deposit 2 kilometers of sediments that’s how you get “surface” organic matter 10000 meters under ground. The Gulf of Mexico is Jurassic in age it has had over 100 million years to accumulate sediments it’s little wonder there are 15000 meter thick sedimentary packages in the Gulf. Bury algae organics under 4 km of earth and the heat and pressure will enter the oil window and literally cook the polylipids in the algae to oil. You can replicate this at the surface a few companies have even tried to commercialize it. Take modern green algae or diatoms add in the same minerals you find in deep sea clays and put in a pressure vessel pump up the heat and pressure to what you would find at 4+ km and in a few days you have hydrocarbons nearly identical to fossil crude oils.
oil is stored sunlight. i like that.
i will be using that from now on along with your references of algaec expressions...
thanks
t