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The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market. [27]
The use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion. [1] The value of a resource is a direct result of its availability in nature and the cost of extracting the resource. The more a resource is depleted the more the value of the resource increases. [2]
Oil sands, often pejoratively referred to as tar sands, are a phenomenon unique to the tundra environment and are profitable and plentiful in the Athabasca region of the Alberta sands. [16] Oil sands consist of bitumen, which contains petroleum, found in a natural state combined with clays, sands, and water. [ 16 ]
In the La Brea Tar Pits, more than one million bones have been recovered since 1906. 231 vertebrate species, 234 invertebrate species, and 159 plant species have been identified. [9] The most frequent large mammal found in the La Brea Tar Pits is the dire wolf, one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores that lived during the Pleistocene. [16]
Much of Canada's petroleum effort has focused on producing oil from the oil sands (sometimes called "tar sands") of northern Alberta. To appreciate these resources, it is important to understand a simple concept from chemistry and physics: the "gravity" of crude oil and natural gas liquids.
"Hubbert's peak" can refer to the peaking of production in a particular area, which has now been observed for many fields and regions. Hubbert's peak was thought to have been achieved in the United States contiguous 48 states (that is, excluding Alaska and Hawaii) in the early 1970s. Oil production peaked at 10.2 million barrels (1.62 × 10 ^ 6 m 3) per day in 1970 and then dec
One of the most difficult environmental challenges facing the oil industry is the management of the oil sands tailings ponds, which hold large volumes of tailings, the byproduct of bitumen extraction from the oil sands, [19] which contain a mixture of salts, suspended solids and other dissolvable chemical compounds such as acids, benzene ...
Bitumen also occurs in unconsolidated sandstones known as "oil sands" in Alberta, Canada, and the similar "tar sands" in Utah, US. The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves, in three huge deposits covering 142,000 square kilometres (55,000 sq mi), an area larger than England or New York state .