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Many People Have No Idea Where Oil Actually Comes From. It's Not Dinosaurs
IFL Science ^ | July 26, 2025 | James Felton

Posted on 07/30/2025 11:12:34 AM PDT by Red Badger

No, your car isn’t running on liquefied dinosaurs.

The good stuff, unless you want a stable environment, of course.

Image Credit: Alexander Knyazhinsky/Shutterstock.com

At some point, you have probably heard somewhere that oil comes from dinosaurs, as if every time you fill up at the gas station, you are pumping refined velociraptor into your Volvo. It’s a vivid image, but it’s not true. Despite how widespread the belief is, oil isn’t made from decomposed dinosaurs.

“For some strange reason, the idea that oil comes from dinosaurs has stuck with many people," geologist Reidar Müller from the University of Oslo explained to Science Norway. "But oil comes from trillions of tiny algae and plankton."

As algae and plankton died tens to hundreds of millions of years ago, they sank to the bottom of the sea, where they accumulated and were buried by layers and layers of sediment. Eventually, after millions of years in a high-pressure and low-oxygen environment, the algae and plankton got "cooked" and turned into that sticky black oil we humans apparently can't get enough of, despite the threat of a climate emergency. From here, it seeps upwards until it hits rock it can't make it through, requiring humans to drill it out (or some other natural disaster to set it free again).

VIDEO AT LINK................

While marine dinosaurs – or a T. Rex that discovered its arms weren't particularly well-adapted to swimming – may find themselves on the bottom of the ocean after death, it's unlikely they would get converted into oil themselves.

This is partly because an oxygen-deprived environment is needed to convert organic matter into oil. Once dead, they would have become a meal for smaller aquatic creatures, picking them apart until they got down to the bones, long before they could be buried.

Now to explain why, "if dinosaurs actually existed", their bones aren't everywhere.

An earlier version of this story was published in 2023.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: abiogenic; algae; carboniferousperiod; carbonpropaganda; climatehoax; deeplife; ecoterrorism; ecoterrorists; fakenews; fakescience; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; jamesfelton; oil; plankton
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To: chud

Who had Pegasus?

Texaco?


41 posted on 07/30/2025 11:50:17 AM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page to help me go home again. https://www.givesendgo.com/GCRRD)
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To: Red Badger

Well, duhh. It comes from Advance Auto.


42 posted on 07/30/2025 11:51:29 AM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: milagro

I’d suggest just fitting them with masts and sails.


43 posted on 07/30/2025 11:51:31 AM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page to help me go home again. https://www.givesendgo.com/GCRRD)
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To: SkyDancer

Yes.

Sinclair also had other kinds of dinosaurs toys in various colors.


44 posted on 07/30/2025 11:53:06 AM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page to help me go home again. https://www.givesendgo.com/GCRRD)
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To: Red Badger
This is exactly what I was taught as a kid. However, there is an alternative theory called "The Abiotic Theory of Petroleum".

The short explanation is the hydrocarbons that produce oil and natural gas are abundant throughout the universe. A book was written about the subject titled "The Deep Hot Biosphere". The author is Thomas Gold. It was published in 1999.

Here is a link to a review:

The Deep Hot Biosphere The Myth Of Fossil Fuels

Here is an excerpt from the link:

"the book advances the stunning idea that most hydrocarbons on Earth are not the byproduct of biological debris ("fossil fuels"), but were a common constituent of the materials from which the earth itself was formed some 4.5 billion years ago

It was a fascinating read.

45 posted on 07/30/2025 11:53:41 AM PDT by JoeVortex (I did not vote for Trump to get us into any more Forever Wars)
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To: Red Badger

I think a case can be made for abiotic process contributing to natural petroleum production. Read

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil-Fuels/dp/0387952535/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3NQL9Y9PEX7EM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qezhJI74w7iiiUgBo1b_xw.v_E_BphEpVbPbZyrdN0DVNDK0yro6MZvCULswd2oADw&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+deep+hot+biosphere+thomas+gold&qid=1753901439&sprefix=hot+deep+bio%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1

I draw a line at it producing coal. For one thing there are fossils in coal. (maybe anthracite!)


46 posted on 07/30/2025 11:55:05 AM PDT by Reily
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To: Salamander
Mobil


47 posted on 07/30/2025 11:56:04 AM PDT by xp38
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To: tumblindice

Luckily I live a block from one. Four blocks from an O’Reilly’s and a mile from Autozone............


48 posted on 07/30/2025 11:56:42 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

Even that is not likely true.

Carbon and hydrogen have been trapped under the mantle since creation.

Compressed together for so long, they form hydrocarbons: Oil.

Russians used this theory to predict, drill and produce oil where no reasonable geologist could using the “from plankton theory.

Essentially, tectonic plates are often floating on a layer of oil. Any reasonable place it can rise to the surface and be trapped is exploitable.

There is a massive amount more oil than all the critters that ever lived could have created.


49 posted on 07/30/2025 11:56:46 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Angelino97’s 100% anti-Semitic lie: “Settlers tend to be ultra-Orthodox Jews, armed with Uzis.”)
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To: Ronaldus Magnus III

Mars has 93% CO2 in its atmosphere. Plant some trees and voila you get O2.


50 posted on 07/30/2025 11:57:30 AM PDT by JeanLM (s )
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To: xp38

Ah!

Thank you!

😊


51 posted on 07/30/2025 11:59:23 AM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page to help me go home again. https://www.givesendgo.com/GCRRD)
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To: Red Badger

Oh oh oh O’Reilleys?

What’s Irish & sits out in the backyard in all kinds of weather?

Patio furniture


52 posted on 07/30/2025 12:00:12 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: Red Badger

They were “ taught” that from the same place that taught them evolution was fact not theory .

The
“ experts”
“ scientists “
and
ACADEMIA

spit.


53 posted on 07/30/2025 12:01:02 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: Flaming Conservative

The generally accepted theory is rotting vegetation - of sorts. Sea plants, dead algae, etc.

I can tell you it is absolutely found in what-used-to-be shallow seas or swamps, generally trapped under/in shale or carbonates.

Now whether this is trapped abiotic methane that converted into heavier petroleum by being eaten by something or the result of things dying and rotting in swamps and seas that got buried, is anyone’s guess. Probably some combination of both. But, regardless, you need something to trap it, and that something is typically a reef that got buried over time.

And it’s clear whatever recharge method there is (if one exists) is pretty slow, otherwise you could come back to old oil fields and turn the spigot on again. Maybe we will be able to.

All that said, there is plenty of oil to be had. Thousands of years of it.

But not that much cheap oil to be had. It takes a lot of work and brainpower and money to get it. Oil has to be expensive to make it worth the effort.

Right now, oil is (adjusted for inflation) as cheap as it has ever been, or close to it.


54 posted on 07/30/2025 12:03:05 PM PDT by TheThirdRuffian (Orange is the new brown)
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To: Red Badger
algae and plankton got "cooked" and turned into that sticky black oil we humans apparently can't get enough of, despite the threat of a climate emergency. From here, it seeps upwards until it hits rock it can't make it through, requiring humans to drill it out

How interesting, because of course oil rises to the top of water. So when volcanic action deep below captures a bunch of goo in rocky outcroppings, the oil then filters up into crevices in the rock due to water pressure. And some volcanic action also raises areas of land so that the oil deposits are no longer under water. Long, long years later, human beings invent drills and pumps. Am I understanding this correctly?

55 posted on 07/30/2025 12:12:23 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (If [mortals] are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? —Benjamin Franklin)
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To: fso301

I don’t know WHERE we got that idea.


56 posted on 07/30/2025 12:15:23 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: Albion Wilde

Yep..................


57 posted on 07/30/2025 12:15:34 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: chud

Mine too.


58 posted on 07/30/2025 12:27:58 PM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: xp38

That’s right.


59 posted on 07/30/2025 12:28:18 PM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Red Badger

What keeps the goo from floating to the surface if there are no rocks to capture it? Does it dlsperse?


60 posted on 07/30/2025 12:28:56 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (If [mortals] are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? —Benjamin Franklin)
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