Oil is not pretty, but it is a resource that drives the modern world.  It has made fortunes for the lucky few and provided jobs for millions of ordinary folks. Thick and slippery, crude oil has an evil smell. Yet without it, life as we live it today would be impossible. Oil fuels our engines, heats our homes, and powers the machines that make the everyday things we take for granted, from shopping bags to computers to medical equipment. Nations throughout the last century have gone to war over it.  Indeed, oil influences every aspect of modern life. It helps shape the history, society, politics, and economy of every nation on earth. This riveting new book explores what oil is and the role this precious resource has played in America and the world. ALBERT MARRIN is the author of numerous highly regarded nonfiction books for young readers, including the National Book Award finalist Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy, Years of Dust, and Sitting Bull and His World . His many honors include the Washington Children's Book Guild and Washington Post Nonfiction Award for an "outstanding lifetime contribution that has enriched the field of children's literature," the James Madison Book Award for lifetime achievement, and the National Endowment for Humanities Medal awarded to him by President George W. Bush. 1 A FREAK OF GEOLOGY The stuff we pump into our gas tanks is a freak of geology, the product of a series of lucky breaks over millions of years. --Tim Appenzeller Of Earth and Living Beings Oil is not pretty. When it is taken from beneath the earth's surface, it is called crude oil, or crude for short. Although crude can be green, red, straw-colored, or chocolate brown, it is usually black. Because it is so valuable, in the late 1800s people in the industry nicknamed it "black gold." Since then, it has made fortunes for the lucky few and provided jobs for millions of ordinary folks. Thick and slippery, crude oil has an evil smell, giving off vapors that make eyes water and throats sore. Yet without it, life as we live it today would be impossible. Oil fuels the engines that move us and our goods from place to place. It heats our homes and powers the machines that make the everyday things we take for granted. Thousands of products, from drinking straws to plastic shopping bags, from plant fertilizer to computers and medical equipment, begin as crude oil. So do most school backpacks, knee guards--even the yellow "rubber" duck floating in your bathtub. Modern weapons such as tanks, aircraft, and ships are so much metallic junk without oil products to make them run. Oil influences every aspect of modern life. It has helped shape the history, society, politics, and economy of every nation on Earth. Nations have fought wars for black gold, and sadly, probably will do so in the future. Yet few who rely on this vital substance know much about it. What, exactly, is oil? How was it formed? When? Where?1 To understand oil, we must begin with a key rule of science: change alone is changeless. This may sound odd, but it is true. Nothing stays the same forever. Change governs everything in the universe, from distant galaxies, stars, and planets to tiny bacteria and giant whales--and us humans, too. Many changes in nature, such as the formation of mountains, happen too slowly for us to notice, unfolding over many lifetimes, even millions of years. When we do see rapid and sudden changes, they are usually bad for us. For example, the people of the Italian city of Pompeii had lived for generations in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, a dormant, or "sleeping," volcano. In the year AD 79, the sleeper awoke with an outburst of flame and fury. Within hours, it sent clouds of hot ash and gas to choke over 20,000 people, nearly all of Pompeii's residents. Mountain ranges and volcanoes are features of the geology of the planet Earth. Geology is the science that studies the structure and history of the earth as recorded in the rocks. If you could slice deep into the earth, you would find that it is arranged in layers. Geologists--earth scientists--believe that the topmost layer of rock, or crust, is between four and forty miles thick. Earth's crust is like an eggshell broken into ten enormous slabs and numerous smaller ones. These slabs, called plates, float on a layer of partially molten rock called the mantle--that is, the layer of rock between Earth's crust and core. Every continent and ocean floor rests atop one or more plates. Driven by heat currents from Earth's core, plates are always in motion, always changing position. Although the plates move slowly, just a few inches a year, their movements have shaped Earth's crust--and still do. Moving plates push against, slide past, and grind under one another. When two plates scrunch together, they trigger earthquakes that create volcanoes and mountain ranges such as the Rockies, Andes, and Himalayas. Yet not even a mountain range can resist the force