tar sand
noun
: a natural impregnation of sand or sandstone with petroleum from which the lighter portions have escaped
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web One of those spills, a 2010 release of more than 1 million gallons of sludgy tar sand soil into a Michigan creek polluted a nearly 40-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River. 
Dylan Lovan, Star Tribune, 12 Mar. 2021 The $8 billion pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, through Nebraska and ultimately to refineries in Texas. Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY, 18 May 2020 Instead of lubricating profits, however, Canada’s tar sands are bunged-up with protests against new pipelines. The Economist, 27 Feb. 2020 The company made a number of oil-intensive investments, such as extraction in the Alberta, Canada, tar sands, that would have been dramatically less profitable if calculated with a high cost of carbon. Irina Ivanova, CBS News, 22 Oct. 2019 This financing—which has included supporting the most extreme oil and gas projects, like the huge pipelines planned in Canada’s uniquely filthy tar sands complex—is perhaps the single least defensible part of the fossil fuel enterprise. Bill Mckibben, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2020 All of the tar sands oil that flows to the U.S. from Canada via the Keystone XL pipeline will be exempt from tariffs under the USMCA. Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 17 Jan. 2020 The spill comes as the company seeks to build the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. SFChronicle.com, 2 Nov. 2019 Zenith has previously raised controversy in Portland because tar sands crude oil from Canada is transported by train through Portland neighborhoods to the firm’s terminal on the Willamette. oregonlive, 2 Nov. 2019 See More
Dylan Lovan, Star Tribune, 12 Mar. 2021 The $8 billion pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, through Nebraska and ultimately to refineries in Texas. Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY, 18 May 2020 Instead of lubricating profits, however, Canada’s tar sands are bunged-up with protests against new pipelines. The Economist, 27 Feb. 2020 The company made a number of oil-intensive investments, such as extraction in the Alberta, Canada, tar sands, that would have been dramatically less profitable if calculated with a high cost of carbon. Irina Ivanova, CBS News, 22 Oct. 2019 This financing—which has included supporting the most extreme oil and gas projects, like the huge pipelines planned in Canada’s uniquely filthy tar sands complex—is perhaps the single least defensible part of the fossil fuel enterprise. Bill Mckibben, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2020 All of the tar sands oil that flows to the U.S. from Canada via the Keystone XL pipeline will be exempt from tariffs under the USMCA. Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 17 Jan. 2020 The spill comes as the company seeks to build the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. SFChronicle.com, 2 Nov. 2019 Zenith has previously raised controversy in Portland because tar sands crude oil from Canada is transported by train through Portland neighborhoods to the firm’s terminal on the Willamette. oregonlive, 2 Nov. 2019 See More Word History
First Known Use
1899, in the meaning defined above