'Dinosaurs' is like the kids level explaination, it's prehistoric krill in most cases IIRC and coal is prehistoric swamp/forest.
technically from what I understand it comes from soils with organic matter being subjected to high pressure and heat over periods of time, which would make sense, you can turn organic waste like corn stalks and stuff into gasoline and oil by burning it and condensing smoke etc.
I think the real reason they call it fossil fuel is so we all think it's not a resource that we as a society are never really going to run out of, but we could actually "create" oil pockets for future generations if we could manage to get far enough into the soil layers to deposit organic matter directly, rather then waiting for it to get there by "layering" of dirt over vast amounts of time.
imo at least.
oil doesnt even come from living creatures, it naturally occurs in new crust
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