Approaching this ancient oil with the diligence and discernment of a petroleum engineer, these tiny multitudes cherry-picked the simpler, “sweeter,” more marketable hydrocarbons, leaving behind the longer, more complex molecules laden with tarry asphaltenes, resins, salts, heavy metals, and complex sulphur compounds, among other unsavory impurities. Fifty million years on, with the low-hanging fruit largely gone, Alberta has inherited the dregs, and oil refiners don’t care for it any more than those intrepid microbes do.
