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Fossil fuels are made from decomposing plants and animals. These fuels are found in Earth’s crust and contain carbon and hydrogen, which can be burned for energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels. Coal is a material usually found in sedimentary rock deposits where rock and dead plant and animal matter are piled up in ...
A fossil fuel[a] is a carbon compound - or hydrocarbon -containing material such as coal, oil, and natural gas, [2] formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants and planktons), a process that occurs within geological formations.
Fossil fuels store energy in the bonds between the atoms that make up their molecules. Burning the fuels breaks apart those bonds. This releases the energy that originally came from the sun. Green plants had locked up that solar energy within their leaves using photosynthesis, millions of years ago.
Fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material of biological origin that can be burned for energy. Fossil fuels, which include coal, petroleum, and natural gas, supply the majority of all energy consumed in industrially developed countries.
In BBC Bitesize 4th Level Science, learn about how fossil fuels are formed and how they are being used as an energy source.
All fossil fuels contain carbon, and all were formed as a result of geologic processes acting on the remains of organic matter produced by photosynthesis—the process by which green plants and certain other organisms transform light energy into chemical energy.
Fossil energy sources, including oil, coal and natural gas, are non-renewable resources that formed when prehistoric plants and animals died and were gradually buried by layers of rock. Over millions of years, different types of fossil fuels formed -- depending on what combination of organic matter was present, how long it was buried and what ...