Bing-O! We struck oil! EarthCache
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This is a large site adjacent to a public road
In the 1800s the largest oil production facility in the world was where? The Gulf? No - in bonnie Scotland.
It is hard to imagine that huge amounts of oil and derivative products were being made in this part of the world.
The oil was not found in liquid form but was extracted from layers of rock deep underground This type of rock is called oil-bearing shale. How did this oil arrive in rock beneath Edinburgh?
In the Carboniferous period about 300 million years ago, what is now Scotland was a piece of land on the equator. That was long before plate tectonics moved it to its current position. At that time there was prolific plant growth. Huge trees and other tropical vegetation grew on the sides of a large tropical lagoon.
As the trees and plants died they fell into the lagoon, and began to rot. The tides covered them with layers of fine mud. This mixture of plant material and mud is called shale.
As time passed, the land was moved northward, and the shale was buried under huge layers of sandstone. Over millions of years, and under the pressure of the sandstone above, the vegetable remains changed into oil and soaked into the mud.
In the 1800s miners discovered these oil bearing shales, and found ways of getting the oil from the rock. They mined millions of tons of shale and treated it on the surface to extract the oil. What remained was dumped on these huge waste piles called BINGS.
When you go to the bing, pick up a piece of rock, You will see it is composed of many very thin layers. These were the muddy deposits that the tides left millions of years ago. Split open a piece of rock – you can just do this with your hands because the rock is soft. As you open the rock you are seeing something over 300 million years old – and you are the very first person to ever see the inside of that rock. It has never been seen before by human eyes. Stop for a moment and think about that . . . .
To prove that you have visited this site, you must answer two questions.
1.At the site there are two distinct colours of rock – what are they?
2. Look at the bing on the east side of the road. Roughly what angle is the slope of the bing?
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