Drilling For Oil!

I have always thought that the process of discovering oil was simple, with nothing too complicated, or too expensive. However, after today's class, I was proven wrong. In today's class, we were taught about one of the earth's most common resources, which is oil. Oil is formed from the remaints of plants and animals that lived from 10 to 160 million years ago. The remains are buried under mud, sand and other minerals, which prevented immediate decay. However, since the remaints were buried in layers and layers in the mud and sand, the lack of oxygen caused the remaints to decay into carbon-rich compounds. After mixing with several sediments and more pressure and layers are added, these remaints turn into oil. The experiment we performed today, was an example of how scientists would drill for oil. We were given 3 maps to trace, with the three components that we needed for oil to be present.

1. Source - Sediment the needs to be heated up and buried, in order to create oil.
2. Reservoir - A place underground used to store the oil
3. Trap - The layer of rock that lies about the reservoir to keep in the oil.

After we traced the outline for those three of the components, we had a map, and we had marked places in which we believed we would find oil. At our lab groups, there was a big tray, and we had a drill pick, in which we used to poke into the tin foil, that covered the tray. For each drill, we would have to pay $225,000, and for each centimeter we drilled, we had to add $100,000.
This experiment showed me that oil is very hard to find, and something very expensive to find, also. This also tells me that I should conserve energy, because of how complicated it is to find oil, and how much money is spent, just to find this resource.

To learn about the oil reserves, click here

Water Cycle! Not a Bicycle.

Earth's water is never stopping. It will keep moving through the cycle it's been going through since the begining of time. The rainwater is turned into water vapor during the evaporation process and then transforms into clouds that are in our atmosphere. When those clouds are full with the water vapor, and can no longer hold it, it rains, or another word is condensation. Condensation is when the water vapor in the air turns into a liquid.

In class, we participated in an experimental activity that demonstrated a way the water cycle could work. We had used plastic spoons, which acted as evaporation, to spoon water from reservoirs. For the reservoirs we used tanks of different sizes, with different amounts of water. The tanks were labeled with what it represented. For example, one reservoir was ocean, another was aquifer, and another was rivers and streams. We also had clouds, which were small plastic cups in which we spooned water into. When the cups were fille dup to a certain point, they were to rain (pour) the water into the reservoir that they were assigned. When the experiment was finished, our supervisor told us that this was an example of a balanced cycle. However, our class didn't think that this was so. Thus, our supervisor gave us another experiment, however, this time we added larger plastic cups, which represented what we humans use. She also added empty tanks for the large plastic cups to fill. When the experiment was over, there wasn't that much water left in the reservoirs, however, the empty tanks for our human usage were practically overflowing! Our experiment supervisor told us that this experiment was an example of an unbalanced cycle, not the other one. I believe that it is surprising that we impact the water cycle, and take so much from the reservoirs, that other animals and plants need to.

Wanna know more about the water cycle? Click here!