webenda wrote:...
And that is why petroleum... is a liquid form of rocks....
No. Not at all.
I wouldn't even refer to coal as a "rock." Oh, coal is hard, all right, and can hurt your head if thrown at it; however, Anthracite and Bituminous are two different forms of coal, one harder than the other, and they burn differently, but I would not refer to them as being "rocks," no matter how hard they are. They are both organic - hydrocarbons. Nobody (firemen) ever loaded rocks into a coal tender for a steam locomotive to burn.
Think: Carbon Cycle. There's the explanation. All living things are made of carbon.
A "liquid form of rock" would be lava. And that's a whole other story in Geology.
In the atmosphere: carbon + oxygen = carbon dioxide. Plants use CO2 & sunlight to make themselves and to grow. Plants that die and are buried can become "fossil fuels." We burn them and the carbon becomes part of the atmosphere again as carbon dioxide. Thus, the "Cycle."
Petroleum and coal are Fossil Fuels, and are, therefore, having once been plants/animals, are organic parts of the Carbon Cycle.
Once the plant or animal dies and is buried under thousands of feet of silt, sand, or mud, it becomes fossil fuel and can be mined/extracted. Perhaps, the fact of where petroleum and coal are found can make some people think petroleum/oil is "liquid rock." No, it is not. Finding thick or thin jelly between layers of bread in a peanut butter-jelly sandwich does not make the jelly bread, by association or emplacement.
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