Petroleum
What is petroleum?
Petroleum is known as crude oil. It is a thick, dark brown or greenish liquid. Petroleum exists in the upper strata of some areas of the Earth's crust. It consists of a complex mixture of various hydrocarbons, largely of the alkane series, but may vary much in appearance, composition, and purity.
Petroleum is used mostly, by volume, for producing fuel oil, which is an important "primary energy" source. Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics.
How are they formed?
Most geologists view crude oil, like coal and natural gas, as the product of compression and heating of ancient vegetation over geological time scales.
According to this theory, it is formed from the decayed remains of prehistoric marine animals and terrestrial plants. Over many centuries this organic matter, mixed with mud, is buried under thick sedimentary layers of material. The resulting high levels of heat and pressure cause the remains to metamorphose, first into a waxy material known as kerogen, and then into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons in a process known as catagenesis. These then migrate through adjacent rock layers until they become trapped underground in porous rocks called reservoirs, forming an oil field, from which the liquid can be extracted by drilling and pumping.