What are the Oil Sands?
Oil sands are made up of naturally occurring bitumen, a viscous oil typically unable to flow to surface, along with water, sand, and clay. The sand grains are coated by a layer of water and bitumen. The oil sands are believed to have been formed from the remains of tiny organisms buried in the seabed of an ocean that covered Alberta hundreds of millions of years ago. The gradual accumulation of silt and sand, combined with mountain building to the west, heated and compressed the remains, converting them over time into oil. This oil eventually migrated and saturated vast areas of sand near the surface, where bacteria consumed the lighter hydrocarbon chains, leaving behind only the molasses-like bitumen. Aboriginal peoples were the first to use bitumen from the Athabasca sands hundreds of years ago to waterproof clothing and canoes. Efforts to commercialize oil sands deposits occurred in the late 19th century and first part of the 20th century, but had limited results. The first oil sand
