From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Thu Nov 13 2003 - 18:38:20 EST
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roger Olson [mailto:rogero@saintjoe.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 2:21 PM
> To: Steven M Smith
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu; glennmorton@entouch.net
> Subject: Re: Declining water and oil
>
>
> Steven, Glenn, et. al..,
>
> "...A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material -- that's
> 196,000 pounds -- is required to produce each gallon of gasoline... "
>
> A quick technical question --- doesn't most petroleum originate from the
> burial and thermal maturation of marine protists (zoo- and
> phytoplankton) rather than "plant material"? Or is this article simply
> giving a plant analogy of the sheer volume of equlivalent organic
> material needed to produce a gallon of petrol?
>
> Thanks for clearing this up. I'm not a geologist, but take some
> interest in the subject.
Oil is formed by the decay of marine organisms, plants and animals, with
some minor input from land plants which get washed to sea and buried. As I
read the article he is drawing an analogy.
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