oil sands
Sign in to saveAlso known as tar sand, tar shale, oil sand, tar Sands, bituminous sand, oilsands, oilsand, tarsands
sands naturally soaked with petroleum
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada, are a very large source of bitumen, which can be upgraded to synthetic crude heavy oil, Western Canadian Select (WCS) Tar sandstone from California, United States
Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “oil sands” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.