Donald Cameron, age 12, of Williamsport, PA for his question:

How is petroleum made?

The rich petroleum oil we find in deep pools underground has taken millions of years to make. It began when tiny plants and animals teemed within the waters of ancient seas. Many of these pockets of living creatures met with disaster. Their seas dried up and left them high and dry,

Their oily bodies were left in muddy slime and the muddy slime was covered again with new layers of reeks. Through ages of time, this mixture of their oily bodies seeped through the pores of rocks and collected in hollow places underground. More ages of time were needed to change this oily slime into our precious petroleum.