What are the stages of petroleum formation?

Answer 1

The crude oil we use today was formed millions of years ago but crude oil is still being formed today.

More crude oil is formed every time an animal or plant in the sea dies and is squashed by layers of other dead marine life (that turns into rock)over the top. This takes a long time.

Answer 2

Petroleum was formed by the remains of animals the lived a long time ago.

Petroleum is used in lip products. Some of the vegetation decomposed to make petroleum grew over 400 million years ago. The longer vegetation and animals are decomposed for, the stronger and better the petroleum is.

Answer 3

Coal is formed when plant and animal remains die. The plant or animal doesn't decay completely forming a layer of peat. It turns into lignite over time because of compressing sediment and the heat pressure. After a long time and temperature staying hot. It turns to Bituminous Coal (soft) to Anthracite Coal (hard).

Oil is formed by mostly plankton that didn't decay completely. It turns into rich mud and because if high temperature and pressure adding depth of burial, it turns into Source Rock. It migrates upward and forms oil and natural gas right above it.

-Anonymous Taiwan Science Kid

Answer 4

Best Answer: Crude oil is created by a natural process known as catagenesis. Organic material is trapped in sediment, and as it is gradually buried under more sediment it is warmed by heat from the earth and converted to oil and natural gas.

The organic material is composed primarily of phytoplankton (tiny plants) and zooplankton (tiny animals) that live in the ocean or in lakes. Some plant material is also trapped in sediments, generally carried into the ocean by rivers. In some instances this process may take place at the bottom of fresh water lakes. In order for the material to be preserved, there must be anoxic conditions within the sediments, meaning that there is no oxygen. The sediments are typically carried into a basin by rivers, but another environment where organic sediments are trapped are mudflats known as sabkhas, and some other lagoonal settings. The common idea that dinosaurs contribute to oil is wrong, because the bodies of large animals rot and decompose quickly, and the organic parts are almost never preserved. Most of the organisms that go into oil are microscopic in size.

As this organic-rich sediment is buried under river deltas or other depositional processes, it will eventually reach what is called the oil window. This is the area of the subsurface where the temperature exceeds about 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees F.). At that temperature, the organic material in the rock begins to convert to oil. As the sediment continues to be buried deeper and deeper it may warm to the point it reaches the gas window, about 160 degrees Celsius (320 F.), and will begin to form gas. If it stays this hot long enough, most of the oil will change to natural gas. If it gets too hot, both the oil and gas will eventually convert to graphite. This process of catagenesis can be duplicated in a laboratory.

One of the ideas that has been presented here is the hypothesis of abiotic oil generation. It has been proposed that oil may form from carbon deep within the earth's mantle. If this happens, it is extremely rare, and it is easy to verify that the vast majority of oil and natural gas do not form this way using isotopic testing, and the visible microscopic evidence of phytoplankton and zooplankton remaining in crude oil. Also, if the abiotic oil generation hypothesis were true, oil would be found in metamorphic and igneous rocks that originate deep within the earth. Oil is never found in these types of rock, so most geologists conclude that the abiotic process must be very insignificant. I don't know where the other answerer gets the idea that it is found there, as he doesn't give any sources for his information, and his explanation about clay is some sort of a combobulation of unrelated concepts (oil expulsion has nothing to do with the formation of oil). Oil is found in sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone and shale. Some shale, known as a "source rock" is so rich in oil that it can be crushed and burnt. That is because shale is one of the original places where the remains of the plankton and plants were trapped and stored.

Answer 5

metamorphic rock