Coal comes from dead things?

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I read that as the flesh rots away on a liveing creature with skin and muscles, that it turns into a different substance, and that substance can turn into coal and gasoline (depending). I guess it would make sence in a way. After all, I also heard that vasoline uses some chemicles from the oil they remove from the earth, which is seperated from what they put out as gasonline. I would rather do without gas. It stinks, and it causes heal probems. Plenty for me to hate it here, as I live in a big city. It sure would be easier to breath without it.

This thing about dead creatures having turned into coal is new to me, but interesting to say the least. Alot of living things did get burried due to natural disasters. Fish, dinosaurs, or what ever. Gas though, it won't last forever. Not that I'll miss it. I wish I could do something about the crud in the bay to. I don't want to eat toxic shrimp, and the water was so yucky, you could actauly see where the filth was. ICK! I don't care for the Galveston beach. Why can't anyone filter out this water like we do to our sewage? Honestly... . -.- 'sigh'

I mean, just the idea of eating fish that, sadly, consumed chemicles powerful enough to burn paint off concrete isn't an apetizing one at that.

Not only coal, but oil and natural gas. Hence the term "fossil fuels".

Tim

all fossil fuels come from decomposed matter, ie. plants and flesh, and so on

Oh, yeah. You've had to been taught that in school, even if you don't remember it, unless you're were home-schooled (and poorly so). It's a basic science knowledge for anyone, around the 3rd grade level here in the US. Coal is like oil (from which we get gasoline) and natural gas - "fossil fuels, as Tim said. Coal is the carbon left over decomposing organic matter, tranformed into a solid state by heat and pressure. The process take hundreds of thousands of years - hence the whole "fossil fuel" moniker.

All organic life, any plant or animal, on Earth is carbon-based. So that carbon ends up somewhere. When something dies, the matter its body is made up of doesn't disappear. It has to change into something.

W...wow. how amasingly dumb, and ruthlessly half whitted of me. My apologies everyone. (no. that's not sarcasum)

Your not "dumb"
It's o.k. to be uninformed about some things. No one knows everything, just be glad that we can all help each other find answeres to questions we're asking, or to provide more info on the statements we make.
As you can tell from my avatar I'm a "tree-hugger", and live as "Green" as I can afford to. Want a hybrid BAD.

"Fossil Fuel, it's NOT cool." is my motto.

Coal comes mainly from fossilised wood, and oil from fossilised sea creatures.

In both the predominant element is carbon.

Interestingly 6, 6, and 6 are the number of neutrons, protons and electrons in the carbon atom, which is the fundamental chemical basis of all carbon based life (all life on earth), and also the number of the beast, which also is said to come from the abyss (oil well anyone?). Of course it doesn't really mean anything as all these relationships are just coincidences

Ya, vasaline, gas, plastic, their are many things that all come from fossil fuels. Most things we have in the modern world come from hydrocarbons, or past lifeforms.

yes, not necessarily dumb not knowing that at all ! ! i can still vaguely remember the moment i really learned that , as opposed to perhaps being taught it in school. And for me too it was an interesting piece of info. Apparently people who have allergic/intolerant reactions to oil, gas, coal, petrol/diesel, turpentine, tarmacadam, vaseline, and other fossil fuel derivatives notably plastics etc , are in fact actually reacting to some specific component of pine tree sap. Their fundamental allergy is to pine trees, which were the most common kind of tree, and giant sized too, at the time that fossil fuels come from!! ( long before human beings existed ) I thought that was quite interesting!!

The first time I heard where fossil fuels came from, I wondered what kind of screwball came up with THAT idea? Then I realized they weren't kidding. Oh, well...