Scientists speculate that for millions of years, the earth was covered mostly with water and swamps, with areas of intense volcanic activity and ice caps. Wreathed in clouds of various gases, it really must have been an interesting place. The great expanses of water and swampland were said to have contained primordial plants and animals that lived out life cycles and sank or drifted to the sea or swamp floor. Soon covered with tons of sand or mud, these sea creatures through the centuries decomposed yeilding valuable oil, coal and natural gas.

Each layer of decaying, then fossilizing, materials added to the next, interspersed with mud or sand. Buried under tons of debris, aided by tiny bacteria, and "cooked" by the heat and the pressure of each ensuing layer, these early plants and animals reverted back to earth's basic elements, carbon and hydrogen.