A process for extracting crude oil from a solid, oil bearing diatomaceous earth. In the process includes the step (a) of mixing crude oil-bearing diatomaceous earthwith a heated solvent such as toluene to reduce the size of the oil-bearing diatomaceous earthand release crude oil into the solvent, step (b) of adding water to the size reduced solid and solvent mixture of step (a) to yield a mixture of crude oil+solvent+water+sized reduced diatomaceous earth, step (c) of passing the mixture of crude oil+solvent+water+sized reduced diatomaceous earthfrom step (b) through a cyclone separator to remove residual solids and to yield crude oil+solvent; and step (d) of passing the crude oil+solvent mixture of step (c) through a solvent stripper to remove solvent from the crude oil and to yield substantially diatomaceous earthand solvent free crude oil.