oil shale
5
5.9
- noun
- /ɔɪl ʃeɪl/
- Specialized
:
pizarra bituminosa
- Dr. Harold Vinegar: We are an R&D and exploration company focused on oil shale and other unconventional resources in Israel.
- oil shale and oil sands
Examples
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Oil shale can be processed to release substantial amounts of oil when heated.
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I suspect a similar thing is going on with Shell's oil shale process.
Blog text (32) -
One of the problems we had in financing an oil shale project was showing a large enough ROI.
Blog text (32) -
In the laboratory, we've heated the oil shale up and produced the oil from it.
Blog text (3) -
It's enormously rich and has a very small surface footprint, which is characteristic of oil shale in general.
Blog text (3) -
Oil shale, or bitumen, is sedimentary rock containing dilute amounts of "heavy oil" or near-solid carbonaceous residues.
Academic text (2004) -
Many countries are exploring oil shale as a potential source of energy in the future.
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The extraction of oil from oil shale requires advanced technology and significant investment.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun compound 'oil shale' is compositionally transparent: a B1 learner who knows 'oil' and 'shale' can infer it refers to shale that contains oil or is related to oil. This follows a common N+N compounding pattern found across languages, so the overall notion is immediately comprehensible even if the technical extraction process is unfamiliar.
Etymology
Oil shale comes from a simple image: layers of soft, thin rock called shale that hold dark, oily material. When people heat this rock, the oil comes out, so the name means 'rock you can get oil from by heating'.