ABSTRACT

Tar sands (also alternately referred to as bituminous or oil sands) are located in certain beds. They contain a somewhat dense, viscous form of petroleum, with the assigned technical term of bitumen. The term tar sands was Ÿrst employed around the turn of the twentieth century. The interstices between the grains of sand are largely Ÿlled with a thick tarry hydrocarbon mixture that can be extracted. This extract can be processed to yield 65 to 75 percent synthetic crude oil. The sand was initially mined and transported to a separation plant. Only open-pit mining was practical, and since most of the deposits were buried too deeply for this activity, there were also relatively few places where commercial, large-scale operations were possible at that time. One of many of these deposits is the Athabasca Tar Sands, located in northern Alberta, Canada, along both sides of the Athabasca River.