WIKTIONARY

fossil fuel

Noun

∙ any fuel derived from hydrocarbon deposits such as coal, petroleum, natural gas and, to some extent, peat; these fuels are non-renewable, and their burning generates the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide

BABYLON ENGLISH
fossil fuel
fuels formed from the remains of plants and animals that lived in an earlier era (coal, petroleum, natural gas)

WORDNET 2.0
fossil fuel
Noun
1. fuel consisting of the remains of organisms preserved in rocks in the earth's crust with high carbon and hydrogen content
(hypernym) fuel
(hyponym) coal

ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA - THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years. Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include coal, petroleum and natural gas. Other more commonly used derivatives of fossil fuels include kerosene and propane. They range from volatile materials with low carbon:hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquid petroleum to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal. Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields, alone, associated with oil, or in the form of methane clathrates. The theory that fossil fuels formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants by exposure to heat and pressure in the Earth's crust over millions of years (see biogenic theory) was first introduced by Georg Agricola in 1556 and later by Mikhail Lomonosov in the 18th century.
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