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Step into an Ice Age adventure. Unearth mysteries deep beneath your feet, witness fossil discoveries, and explore exhibits of mammoth proportions. Dive into a unique journey through time, as you investigate the science and history preserved by the Tar Pits.
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Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits; Hart William S. Hart Museum;...
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Buy Tickets - La Brea Tar Pits
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Plan Your Visit - La Brea Tar Pits
- Experience The Tar Pits
Experience The Tar Pits - La Brea Tar Pits
- Educational Resources
Educational Resources - La Brea Tar Pits
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- Excavations
Excavations - La Brea Tar Pits
- Museum Exhibitions
For over a century, researchers at La Brea Tar Pits have...
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A trip to La Brea Tar Pits is not complete without seeing...
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Right in the heart of L.A. sits the world’s most powerful gateway to the Ice Age. The asphalt seeps at La Brea Tar Pits are the only active urban fossil dig site in the world. Plants and animals from the last 50,000 years are discovered here every day.
- Not Tar...Asphalt
- Only A Few Inches Deep
- Asphalt Is An Amazing Preservative
- No Dinosaur Fossils...Ice Age Fossils
- Carnivores 9, Herbivores 1
- Both Mammoths and Mastodons
- Lots of Wolves
- Birds Are A Big Deal
- Most Species Still Exist
- Only One Human Found
Asphalt bubbling up from below ground at the La Brea Tar Pits pond. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. To be clear: the La Brea Tar Pits are not actually composed of tar at all. They are composed of bitumen or asphalt. The La Brea pits should be more accurately named La Brea Bitumen Pits or La Brea Asphalt Pits. Tar is derived from organic materials such a...
Smilodon californicus (Saber-Tooth Cat) and Canis dirus (Dire Wolf) fight over a Mammuthus columbi (Columbian Mammoth) carcass in the La Brea Tar Pits. Frontpiece illustration by Robert Bruce Horsfall from A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere, by William Berryman Scott, New York, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1913, redone at Wikimedi...
La Brea Tar Pits lab worker cleans asphalt from a 40,000-year-old bison bone. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. Asphalt is not easily removed from fossil remains, as La Brea Tar Pits paleontologists can tell you, but skeletal remains encased in it are kept in pristine condition. Even tiny markings on teeth are preserved. With such amazing preservative, an...
Mural portraying Ice Age Los Angeles at La Brea Tar Pits & Museum. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. Fossils found in the La Brea Tar Pits only date from the very end of the Pleistocene epoch (also known as the Ice Ages), from 11,700 to 50,000 years ago, which still falls within our current Cenozoic Era. The era of the dinosaurs was significantly earlier,...
Reconstructed sabre-tooth cat fossil skeleton on display at La Brea Tar Pits & Museum. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. The ratio of carnivores to herbivores found in the La Brea Tar Pits is nine to one. Scientists theorize that trapped herbivores attracted lots of carnivores, even from far away. The carnivores, finding a animal trapped by asphalt and a ...
Mammoth and mastodon fossils at La Brea Tar Pits Museum and Pit 9. Los Angeles Almanac Photos. The La Brea Tar Pits are one of the few sites in North America where both Mammoth and Mastodon fossils have been found in the same site. Mastodons were an older species, smaller in size, with shorter and straighter tusks, pointed teeth, and flatter heads....
Wall display of 400 dire wolf skulls, La Brea Tar Pits & Museum. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. More than 4,000 individual dire wolves (Canis dirus) have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits. They are the most common mammal found in the tar pits. In fact, one of the most iconic displays at the La Brea Tar Pits Museum is the orange-lit wall of 400 dire wo...
Display of bird fossils and artist renditions. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. The La Brea Tar Pits & Museum holds the largest Ice Age fossil collection in the world and the largest collection of Ice Age bird fossils. Bird fossils are rare, because the hollow bones of birds tend not to hold up well as fossils. Bird fossils in asphalt deposits, however, ...
A female mountain lion in the Verdugo Mountains with lights of Los Angeles in background. Courtesy National Park Service. Many of the animal fossil species found in the La Brea Tar Pits still exist today. Among these are coyotes, dogs, mountain lions, gray foxes, bobcats, rabbits, black bears, raccoons, mice and skunks. There are also grasshoppers,...
Portrayal of La Brea Woman, La Brea Tar Pits & Museum. Los Angeles Almanac Photo. The remains of only one human has ever been found in the La Brea Tar Pits. This was La Brea Woman, a young native woman believed to have lived about 9,000 years ago. We will likely never know for sure, but a fracture in her skull suggests that she might have been L.A....
Aug 1, 2016 · Nestled within downtown Los Angeles is the natural wonder, the La Brea Tar Pits. For tens of thousands of years, tar has been seeping up in the ground here claiming the lives of poor, unknowing creatures and preserving them in wonderful condition for us to “enjoy” today.
May 15, 2024 · Eight students visiting the La Brea Tar Pits on Tuesday were hospitalized after they suffered adverse effects from ingested marijuana edibles, according to firefighters.
- dpfioresi@cbs.com
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- Web Producer
Mar 6, 2024 · Mark the 60th anniversary of La Brea Tar Pits' designation as a National Natural Landmark with some vintage photography.
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Apr 18, 2004 · From 1913 to 1915, scientists from the county museum excavated more than 750,000 fossils in 96 pits, including the nearly intact 9,000-year-old skeleton of La Brea Woman.
