Word: oilsand
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...TIME, Dec. 17, 1945). But in 1943, he found in sea mud a comma-shaped bacterium which he named (he was only 38 at the time, and feeling in the pink) desulphovibrio halo-hydrocarbonoclasticus. He put it in a test tube filled with material to simulate a limestone oilsand. Four days later, oil bubbled out of the test tube's mouth. A little later, all the oil in the sand was gone...
...sheer multiplication, the bacteria push oil particles off the grains of oilsand. They dissolve limestone, making the formation more porous. They generate carbon dioxide, which pushes oil particles ahead of it by gas pressure. The bacteria also produce a "detergent" (soaplike substance) which makes clinging oil films gather into free globules...
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