And then one day they were shooting at some food....

SCIENCE WATCH; THE OLDEST OIL EVER FOUND

MOST of the world's oil comes from geological sediments laid down since the time when animals and plants had already evolved to highly advanced forms. But a recent discovery in Australia may not only enhance scientific understanding of primitive life forms but may also disclose hitherto untapped sources of oil.

A team of geologists working for the Australian Government's Bureau of Mineral Resources reports in the journal Nature that it has discovered oil formed from the decayed remains of organisms that lived 1.4 billion years ago, when the earth was young. After the group drilled a 1,100-foot-deep test hole beneath the McArthur Basin in northern Australia, the oldest oil of its kind ever found bubbled to the surface.

Half of the world's oil production comes from sediments deposited during the Tertiary period, which began 65 million years ago and ended 1.8 million years ago. Most of the rest of the oil comes from the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods, when dinosaurs ruled the land, from 195 million to 65 million years ago.

Analysis of the oil found by the Australian group showed that it had been produced from the remains of primitive bacteria and algae, the only forms of life that existed on the earth 1.4 billion years ago.

''These results show that exploration of previously ignored sediments may lead to the discovery of new reserves of oil,'' the Australians said.

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/02/sc...

And here is the mentioned Nature Journal:

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