The first major step (shown in another video) in refining crude oil is fractional distillation where they heat the crude and literally “boil off” the different hydrocarbon chains. This causes the vertical separation of the different hydrocarbon molecules in the tower.
But because fractional distillation only produces about 20% gasoline from the crude, petroleum engineers get techy by using some sophisticated combinations of physic and chemistry in a process called "cracking”.
Cracking is the process of breaking apart longer hydrocarbon molecular chains into smaller pieces. The process breaks or cracks the heavier, higher boiling-point petroleum fractions into more valuable products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. Though that may sound simple, it’s far from it. In fact, they use several different sophisticated methods of cracking hydrocarbon molecules in a modern refinery.
The first is thermal cracking that they do inside a unit called a “coker” where they subject the hydrocarbons to extreme heat and pressure. Coking is a severe method of thermal cracking used to upgrade heavy residuals into lighter products or distillates. Coking produces straight-run gasoline (naphtha) and various middle-distillate fractions used as catalytic cracking feedstock. The process so completely reduces hydrogen that the residue is a form of carbon called "coke." 
Another form of cracking is hydrocracking. A hydrocracking unit, or hydrocracker, takes heavier and higher boiling range molecules and cracks the heavy molecules into distillate and gasoline using hydrogen and a catalyst.
When you’re ready to crack into more layers of refining science, click on the “Learn More” tab below. Also, don’t miss exploring the other videos and lesson activities on our website that complete the rest of the crude oil refining and transportation story.
Plus, take a moment and check out the jazzed petroleum industry careers video on the right and the link to “Careers for Petroleum Engineers” below. Then, click the link of our educational partner here to discover bonus info about refining and transporting crude oil.
Life lesson here. What's the impact on the planet and society when a user of natural resources only takes resources for profit and fails to reinvest in restoring what they've impacted? Everyone loses. The planet, society, ecosystems and even the company end up being losers. What's the solution? For an industrial sand mining operation it begins with a comprehensive environmental study that becomes part of their mine reclamation plan that should consider all the abiotic and biotic factors that may be impacted by mining.
When done right, a mining operation is actively going through several stages of evolution and transformation. At Tunnel City, Wisconsin for instance, they didn't simply come in and bulldoze off the overburden from the entire area so they could scoop up all the quality sand and leave a giant gaping hole in the ground. No, that would be totally wrong for the environment and nearby communities. Instead, they mine across the landscape by mining sand in one smaller area while restoring previously mined sections in different areas at the same time. So they're essentially reclaiming and restoring some areas while they're also mining the sand from new ones. The end result is that there's less total cumulative impact on the greater landscape and the various species that live there.
We can imagine how a white-tailed deer or wild turkey could easily flee the advance of mining in a certain area and return months or years later when the area was restored. But what about special species that depend on a key part of the environment, or what if a species is special or endangered? That too is part of a proper environmental study that's incorporated into the restoration plan. Watch the video here and read more in the "Learn More" section below to discover how certain species deserve special attention during planning and restoration.
Be sure to explore these other related serious science videos and their companion lesson activities on industrial sand mining, with your teachers and fellow students for some fun interactive peer learning.
The educational partner listed below supported the science video content you see here. Visit their page to learn more about their sand mining operations.
Their secret to using a thousand times more fresh water every day than they pump from the ground is based on the 3 R's of sustainability that you've likely learned from some of our previous videos and lessons. Remember? They are: 1)Reuse, 2)Reduce, 3)Recycle.
Though this sand mine employs all three R's in their process, recycling is the biggie. And boy is it BIG. Just watch the video to get a sense of the massive water filtration and recycling plant that uses several very cool technological phases to turn thick, muddy soup into water that looks clean enough to drink. No joke.
Even with their recycling system, they still needed to perform a "hydrologic study" to determine that their intended water demands wouldn't adversely affect the water table - you know, the ground water in the aquifer that the area depends on for their fresh water supplies. In rural areas, such as this, most residents get their water from personal water wells on their property. It makes sense that an industry can't simply come in a pump all the water they want without regard for the impact on the local aquifer. To learn more about hydrologic studies and ground water, dive into the classroom learning offered in our free lesson plans below.
Also, click on the Learn More tab below to discover some of the parts of a "mine reclamation plan" and how it affects the landscape and ecosystems.
Let's say that you have a super-sub sandwich with tons of meats, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and the works all layered together. Your challenge is to "mine" out one select layer of ham, sandwiched in the middle, by pinching out finger-sized bits from above and below. And after you've removed all the ham, you somehow have to put the sandwich all back together so it looks the same (minus the ham) as before you started. Impossible? With a sandwich, maybe it is. But how do industrial sand miners do something very similar on hundreds of acres of landscape? The answer is that they use a "geomorphic mine reclamation plan".
As you'll see in the video here, mining industrial sand isn't as easy as scooping up loads of the stuff off the ground. Mother Nature and the unique geology that created industrial sand layers make it challenging and a bit complicated. Take, for instance, the industrial quality sandstone zone in the open mine at Tunnel City, Wisconsin. It's like the ham in your sub sandwich as it's sandwiched in the middle and covered with tons of "overburden" that need to be dug and hauled off bit by bit using bulldozers, front end loaders, and huge trucks.
Mother Nature did smile on the miners here, however, as the prime sandstone layer is not cemented very much between the grains. Many ancient sandstone layers undergo the geologic process of "secondary cementation" where mineral-rich waters in the formation precipitate various forms of calcite or silica over time and cement all the individual grains together into a massive block of sandstone. Sure, it makes really solid material for building pyramids, but also makes it almost impossible to mine for the industrial sand that must consist of loose and clean individual grains.
Once they expose the quality zone of sandstone, they can extract it with big D-11 bulldozers and front end loaders. No blasting needed here. You can almost break the sandstone apart with your bare hands. However, moving tons of loose sand with all that machinery has the potential to create a health hazard. It's called silica dust that can, in some instances, cause a lung condition called silicosis. Click on the Learn More tab below to learn more about the kinds of potential silica dust and how miners control and monitor it.
To dig further into the more Serious Science of industrial sand mining, explore these videos and companion lesson activities:
The educational partner listed below supported the science video content you see here. Visit their page to learn more about their sand mining operations.
Ah, so you already "know" that mining and using frac sand, or "industrial sand", is a bad deal, right? Before you answer, consider where you learned that. You may have formed your opinion from biased sources that presented a negative image because it made for more controversial news or supported a particular perspective. A skewed perspective can sometimes speak in a stronger voice than factual science.
That's why we want you to become real scientists here by forming your own conclusions based on the facts that you discover. That is an important part of the scientific process. Do your own independent research such as digging into the science here, the links at the bottom of this page, and within other recent scientific studies and different online sources. You may be surprised by what you uncover.
The chemistry and geology of industrial sand in the Upper Midwest is relatively simple and very ancient. Sand is made up primarily of quartz. It's silica, or SiO2. It's the most common silica crystal and the second most common mineral on the earth. And because of its chemical and physical properties, it's key in making many of things that make our modern lives possible. Rather than simply tell you, watch the video above to get a better idea. Doing your own online research will reveal even more uses.
But why mine industrial sand when deserts and beaches are covered with tons of sand? The answer is that different kinds of sand have different chemical and physical properties. To be classified as industrial sand, the sand source needs to contain a large percentage of very pure silica sand, with uniform grain size and clean, well-rounded grains. The silicon-oxygen atoms that make up pure silica quartz form one of nature’s hardest minerals. One of the geologic factors that created sedimentary layers of industrial-quality sandstone is that the sand was "washed and sorted" for millions of years in an ancient sea by tides, currents, wave action, and storms. Most of the impurities got washed away while the sand grains became extremely rounded and sorted into very uniform spheres. In some of the sandstone layers they almost resemble clusters of miniature eggs.
This rare silica sand layer of sedimentary rock was deposited in an ancient sea 500 million years ago that used to be located in parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. Because this particular sandstone layer is only exposed at or near the surface in some places, it makes certain sites in Wisconsin and Minnesota very important to the sand mining industry.
To find out more about the wide range of uses for industrial-quality sand, read the "Learn More" section below, and watch the video above. Be sure to explore these other related serious science videos and their companion lesson activities on industrial sand mining, with your teachers and fellow students for some fun interactive peer learning.
The educational partner listed below supported the science video content you see here. Visit their page to learn more about their sand mining operations.
What are these strange things called “Ice Caves”?
It all began hundreds of millions of years ago when sands were washed into an ancient ocean, forming bedded sandstone rock layers across Northern Wisconsin. Much later, the area was “geologically uplifted” and exposed the massive sandstone layers to the erosional effects of weathering from waves and water.
To learn more about the rocks along the shores of the Great Lakes, download the free lesson activities at the bottom of this page.
Now back to the ice caves…. Over time, the powerful forces of wave erosion along the shoreline of Lake Superior carved sea caves along the Mainland Unit of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Where wave action erodes and undercuts the base of a cliff, a feature known as a “reentrant” develops. Sea caves are produced when a number of these reentrants join behind the face of a cliff, leaving behind supporting pillars and arches. They develop most easily where the sand layers comprising a rock formation are very thin.
The sandstone bluffs that border the lakeshore there make for an ideal setting for the formation of ice caves – when winter weather conditions are right. Each winter ice forms on Lake Superior when waves splashing against the rock face begin to freeze on the sandstone cliffs. The more frigid the weather, the faster the ice forms along the rock bluffs and within the eroded caverns. Adding to the ice formations, water seeping between cracks in the sandstone rock layers freezes and forms a variety of features similar to limestone caves. But here, the stalactites and stalagmites are made of ice. Iron leached from the rocks can stain some of the ice formations pink or orange. While some formations with water splashing from the crystalline waters of Lake Superior can appear “ice blue”. There are also large icicles and formations hanging off of the cliffs that form curtains and columns of ice, and abundant ice crystals.
Before planning a summer paddling or “ice cave” winter trekking trip to the area, check the websites below to find out conditions and safety concerns.
How would you decode this earth science mystery?
Geo-scientists ran into a glacial mystery when their mapping of glacial material called "drift" revealed an area in western Wisconsin that didn’t have any glacial drift material. They named the place the driftless area. But what really made this driftless area such a mystery was that the entire area of 15,000 square miles was surrounded by drift. This meant that glaciers went entirely around the driftless area but didn’t cover it. Are you kidding? How was that possible?
To find out some of this mystery, watch this video. To really "get with the drift" of what happened here over the past 2.5 million years, take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Lesson Activity at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
Okay, here's the deal. When glaciers advanced across Wisconsin, they reshaped much of the landscape. The thick ice carried boulders, sand, and gravel as it advanced. And when it finally melted and retreated, it left behind all that material. Scientists called it “glacial drift.” This glacial drift of sand, gravel, rocks and boulders covers the ground where the glaciers once were. Earth scientists map areas where this drift is present to recreate the history of glacial activity.
To get the rest of the this story, click "Learn More" below here. Or, if you have the time, also watch the amazing half-hour Emmy-winning documentary from our educational buddies at Untamed Science on "Mysteries of The Driftless". Just click on the movie in the upper right window. We bet you a bag of popcorn that you don't "drift off" while watching it!
These educational partners supported the video and lesson content here for all of us to learn from. They also offer lots of other learning opportunities on their websites. So check them out!
Society, as we know it, would be a lot different if we didn’t have pollinators. Many of the fruits we consume simply wouldn’t exist without them. In fact, the majority of plants are pollinated by what are called “biotic”, or living, pollinators. These include bees, butterflies, beetles, moths, and even bats.
How do these animals help plants reproduce through pollination? To answer that question we need to become botanists, or plant scientists, and take a closer look at flowers.
Flowers contain a stigma, or the female reproductive part of the plant. The stigma is smack dab in the middle of a flower and is something of a bulls-eye for biotic pollinators. Pollinators find the flower and settle upon the stigma to consume nectar. These creatures brush up against the pollen grains found on the stamen, or male reproductive part of the plant. When this pollen sticks to pollinators, the flower has done its job.
The pollinators, lured in with tasty nectar, now carry the pollen grains with them as they visit other flowers. And when those pollen grains contact the stigma of a flower that belongs to the same species…voila. A new plant is born.
Some plants use nitrogen fixation to gather the nutrients from the soil and almost all plants use the process of photosynthesis to make food from the sun. Not sure what these are? Well, watch the video to find out.
Check out this Serious Science video to learn more about these creatures who help feed the world. You’ll also join Caroline and Josh as they investigate the science of nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis. To take your learning even further, download the lesson activities below. Your teacher can download the lessons for free and you can blossom into a plant scientist in no time flat.
If you’ve ever ridden in a car, then you’ve been transported using the combustible chemical reaction of the renewable biofuel called ethanol. Well, at least 10% of your ride, anyway.
The ethanol story begins with a single kernel of corn in the springtime. But rather than tell you the whole story, you can learn by watching the video above. This overview depicts how that single kernel begins the transformation process that finally ends up in your car’s gas tank … with some chemical conversions and help from technology in between. Keep in mind, this video and the related learning materials below are only a introductory "primer" for the greater ethanol story. As with any science learning, also consider and evaluate the validity and sources of the materials, including videos — especially with potentially controversial topics such as ethanol production.
There’s so much more to learn with upcoming STEM-related videos and companion lesson activities; exploring the deeper science, technology, engineering and math, including the social and economic implications, of ethanol. This video and the companion lesson materials are designed for teachers and students to use in the classroom to foster ethanol discussions, or to launch related learning activities that you’ll find at the bottom of this page. You'll also find some helpful educational links below too, including our educational partners at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, and KEEP. You'll also find resource links from the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, the Renewable Fuels Association and our friends at the Department of Energy.
Ethanol is a type of “biofuel” that is commonly blended in with gasoline, which most people use to fuel their automobiles. This “ethyl alcohol” is the same type of alcohol that can be found in alcoholic beverages, (consumed responsibly by adults) and it’s produced in a very similar way from the results of a “bio-chemical” reaction.
There's tons more to learn about ethanol history, how they make it, uses, and chemical reactions by opening the "Learn More" icon below. And be sure to share this with your classroom so your teacher can download the free companion lesson activities.
Did you ever wonder why we sleep only one night at a time yet bears sleep for five months? How do bumblebees survive winter underground when their body temperature is just above freezing? Discover the answers by watching this Serious Science video!