No, this isn't a section about top ten music hits. Oil sands don't have much of a beat and are very hard to dance to, what with all that oozing and all. This is where we answer the top ten questions that visitors to the Centre have had in the past. Take a look at a couple of these and hopefully our answers will fill you in on what you might want to know about this sticky stuff and why it's so important to Canada.

1. What are the oil sands?

1. A beach where you don't need to apply suntan oil.

2. The ground underneath your car after you do an oil change.

3. A mixture of bitumen, sand, water and clay.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. No, But better get out of the sun, your brains are starting to bake. --------- 2. Nope. Sorry, grease- monkey. --------- 3. Correct! ---------

2. Where are the oil sands located?

1. All over the world, with the largest deposits being in Alberta and Venezuela.

2. At the center of the earth.

3. On "Oil Sands Island," just south of Greenland.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Correct! --------- 2. Sorry. You've been reading too much Jules Verne. --------- 3. "Oil Sands Island?" You haven't looked at an atlas lately, have you? ---------

3. How much oil does Alberta's oil sands contain?

1. A gigajillion litres of oil.

2. Over 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen of which 300 billion barrels are recoverable with current technology.

3. More than twice the volume of the moon.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Giga- jillion? What part of this answer sounded legit to you? --------- 2. Correct! --------- 3. You have absolutely no concept of volume, do you? ---------

4. Where does oil come from?

1. From the oil meteorite that slammed into the earth during the dinosaur age.

2. Not sure. But probably from organic materials that collected in the sands here from a river delta millions of years ago.

3. It bubbles up from the inner core of the Earth.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. No, but it could make one heck of a movie. --------- 2. Correct! (we think.) --------- 3. That would be lava, Einstein. ---------

5. What is bitumen?

1. A long handled, retractable staff developed to scrape gum off the sidewalk.

2. A term that would cause your parents to wash your mouth out with soap.

3. A substance with the consistency of molasses that comprises up to 18% of the oil sands.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. No, but feel free to use this answer when playing Balder- dash. --------- 2. Nope, but it's fairly obvious. --------- 3. Correct! ---------

6. How do you get bitumen out of the oil sands?

1. Add hot water and stir. Skim off the top.

2. A very fine mesh screen.

3. Dynamite. The bitumen is collected in a tank two kilometres away.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Correct! Just like the foam on top of a latte. --------- 2. No, but ooooh, messy. --------- 3. Not a chance. Sounds kind of INSANE, doesn't it? ---------

7. What products are made from oil from oil sands?

1. Coffee whitener.

2. Jet fuel, fuel for heating homes, fuel for cars, plastics, synthetic rubber, you name it.

3. Nacho cheese toppings.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Wrong again, Java- junky. --------- 2. Correct! (and even more stuff). --------- 3. Can't you keep your mind off your stomach? ---------

8. Who discovered the oil sands?

1. A number of explorers and pioneers noticed it but it wasn't until the 1870/80's that scientists began to recognize its commercial possibilities. Aboriginals had, however, used it to waterproof canoes in previous times.

2. Sir John A. MacDonald while on a hot-air balloon trip circumnavigating Canada.

3. John Glenn. "This is one small step into some sticky, oily stuff for mankind."

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Correct! --------- 2. No! Everyone knows Sir John A. was scared of heights! --------- 3. He isn't even Canadian. ---------

9. How are the oil sands mined and what is done after mining is complete?

1. With a pickax and wheelbarrow. The oil sands are loaded into sacks and shipped by donkey for processing at the plant.

2. A line of forty men is formed and the first scoops up some oil sands, forms a type of snowball and tosses it to the next man. It goes up the line until the last man throws it into the back of a pickup truck for transport.

3. Dig up the material covering it, scoop it up with huge shovels and dump it into really big trucks for processing somewhere else.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Sorry. You must be thinking of the oil sands in Venezuela (just kidding). --------- 2. "Oil Snow- balls?" What part of that fooled you? --------- 3. Correct! Sounds simple but that's what it is! ---------

10. When do you use "in-situ" production and when does it make more sense to mine oil sands?

1. When you want to impress people with your use of Latin.

2. "In-situ" methods are used when the overburden is too thick for strip mining.

3. When you make an etiquette "faux-pas" such as resting your elbows on the table.

Choose your answer from below and click on it to see if you're right.
1. Can you decipher this pig-latin? "ong- wray." --------- 2. Correct! --------- 3. Wrongo. Good table manners don't play much of a part when digging up millions of tons of oil sands. ---------