Where do oil and coal come from?

Answer 1

There are three major forms of fossil fuels , Coal, Oil and natural gas. All three were formed many hundreds of millions of years ago before the time of the dinosaurs - hence the name fossil fuels. The age they were formed is called the Carboniferous period. It was part of the Paleozoic Era. ''Carboniferous '' gets its name from carbon, the basic element in coal and other fossil fuels. The carboniferous period occurred from about 360 to 286 million years ago. At the time, the land was covered with swamps filled with huge trees, ferns and other large leafy plants. The water and seas were filled with algae - the green stuff that forms on a stagnant pool of water. Algae is actually millions of very small plants. Some deposits of coal can be found during the time of the dinosaurs. As the trees and plants died, they sank to the bottom of the swamps of oceans. They formed layers of spongy material called peat. Over many hundreds of years, the peat was covered by sand and clay and other minerals, which turned into a type of rock called sedimentary. More and More rock piled on top of more rock,