Context: Asphalt/bitumen is similar to the organic matter in carbonaceous meteorites. However, detailed studies have shown these materials to be distinct. The vast Alberta bitumen resources are believed to have started out as living material from marine plants and animals, mainly algae, that died millions of years ago when an ancient ocean covered Alberta. They were covered by mud, buried deeply over the eons, and gently cooked into oil by geothermal heat at a temperature of 50 to 150 °C (120 to 300 °F). Due to pressure from the rising of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta, 80 to 55 million years ago, the oil was driven northeast hundreds of kilometres into underground sand deposits left behind by ancient river beds and ocean beaches, thus forming the oil sands.

Question: To what is the organic matter in asphalt similar?
Answer: meteorites

Question: What did the Alberta bitumen mines begin as?
Answer: living material

Question: What kind of living materials formed the basis of bitumen?
Answer: plants and animals

Question: What feature originally covered Alberta?
Answer: ocean

Question: What temperatures did the organic deposits need to form bitumen over the eons?
Answer: 50 to 150 °C

Question: Bitumen is similar to inorganic matter in what type of meteorites?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Bitumen varies greatly from organic matter found in what type of meteorites? 
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Thousands of years ago an ancient ocean covered which area?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: How many years ago were the Rocky Mountains covered in an ancient ocean?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: How many years ago did the Rocky Mountains arise in northeastern Alberta?
Answer: Unanswerable