oilydunes
Bitumen over limestone into Athabasca
Here is a shot upstream of town looking at the south bank of the Athabasca River and the bitumen naturally seeping into it over top of the devonian limestones.
In 1787 Sir Alexander MacKenzie wrote the following while standing on the bank of the Clearwater River which feeds into the Athabasca in Fort McMurray "About 24 miles from the fork are some bituminous fountains, into which a pole of twenty feet long may be insterted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state, and when mixed with gum or the resinous substance collected from the spruce fir it serves to gum the canoes..." Of course there are hydrocarbons in the water, there is miles and miles of natural oil seeps into the Athabasca River, I have stood there personally and photographed them, you can see the oil slicks coming off the natural seeps into the river on hot days tens of miles from any operations, this has been the case for thousands of years....
Bitumen over limestone into Athabasca
Here is a shot upstream of town looking at the south bank of the Athabasca River and the bitumen naturally seeping into it over top of the devonian limestones.
In 1787 Sir Alexander MacKenzie wrote the following while standing on the bank of the Clearwater River which feeds into the Athabasca in Fort McMurray "About 24 miles from the fork are some bituminous fountains, into which a pole of twenty feet long may be insterted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state, and when mixed with gum or the resinous substance collected from the spruce fir it serves to gum the canoes..." Of course there are hydrocarbons in the water, there is miles and miles of natural oil seeps into the Athabasca River, I have stood there personally and photographed them, you can see the oil slicks coming off the natural seeps into the river on hot days tens of miles from any operations, this has been the case for thousands of years....