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The La Brea Tar Pits (or Rancho La Brea Tar Pits) are a famous cluster of tar pits located in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, California; here buried asphalt seeps to the surface from the extensive petroleum deposits below the surface of the Los Angeles Basin. It is best known for the large number of mammal fossils from the last ice age which have been found there, but fossilized insects and plants, even pollen grains, help fill out a picture of the cooler, moister climate of the Los Angeles basin during the glacial age. Such microfossils are retrieved from their matrix of asphalt and sandy clay by washing with a solvent to remove the petroleum, then picking through the remains under a high-powered lens. The George C. Page Museum, part of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, presents these discoveries. Of more than a hundred pits, one (Pit 91) continues to be regularly excavated for two months each summer, under the watchful eyes of tourists.
Brea is Spanish for "tar", "The La Brea Tar Pits" therefore being a tautological term "The The Tar Tar Pits" (an example of pleonasm). The 'tar' pits were used as a source of asphalt (for use as low-grade fuel and for waterproofing and insulation) by early settlers of the Los Angeles area. The bones were taken for the remains of unlucky pronghorns or local cattle that had become mired.
La Brea may be the only excavation site in the world where the predators found outnumber prey. Ten predators have been recovered for each prey animal. The reason for this is unknown but one credited theory is that a large prey animal (say, a mastodon) would die naturally or accidentally become entrapped in a tar pit, attracting numerous predators across long distances, for an easy meal. This so-called predator trap would kill many animals that find themselves stuck with their prey. Another theory, specific to the Dire Wolf, suggests that both prey and predators may have been trapped accidentally during the hunt. Since wolves hunt in packs, each prey animal could take several wolves with it.
Among the prehistoric species associated with the La Brea Tar Pits are mammoths, dire wolves, short-faced bears, ground sloths, and the state fossil of California, the saber-toothed cat, Smilodon californicus. Much of the early work in identifying species was performed in the early 20th century by John C. Merriam of the University of California.
Radiometric dating of preserved wood and bones has given an age of 38,000 years for the oldest known material from the La Brea seeps, and they are still ensnaring organisms today.
Rancho La Brea is the most famous, but there are two other asphalt pits with fossils in southern California: in Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County and McKittrick, in Kern County. There are other fossil-bearing asphalt deposits in Texas, Peru, Trinidad, Iran, Russia and Poland.
For other rich deposits, fossilized where they occurred, see Lagerstätten.
La Brea Animals & Plants
Mammals
Extinct mammals have their scientific names appended. This is a selection from the complete catalogue.- Giant Bison (Bison antiquus)
- Bobcat
- American Camel (Camelops hesterus)
- Saber-Toothed Cat (Smilodon fatalis)
- Scimitar Cat (Homotherium serum)
- Cougar
- Coyote
- Western Horse (Equus occidentalis)
- Jaguar
- American Lion (Panthera atrox)
- Llama, locally extinct
- Columbian Mammoth (Mammuthus columbi)
- American Mastodon (Mammut americanum)
- Peccary
- Pronghorn (Capromeryx minor), an extinct Pronghorn
- Raccoon
- Skunk
- Harlan's Ground Sloth (Glossiotherium harlani)
- Shasta Ground Sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis)
- Tapir (Tapirus californicus)
- Weasel
- Dire Wolf (Canis dirus)
Birds
Reptiles, Amphibians, and Fish
- Arroyo Chub
- Garter Snake
- Gopher Snake
- Kingsnake
- Pond Turtle
- Rainbow Trout
- Rattlesnake
- Salamander
- Three-Spined Stickleback
- Tree Frog
- Toad
Invertebrates
Plants
- California Juniper
- Coast Live Oak
- Poison Oak
- Ragweed
- Raspberry
- Red Cedar
- Redwood tree
- Sagebrush
- Sycamore
- Thistle
- Walnut tree
La Brea in fiction
- In the 1997 pseudo-scientific fantasy film Volcano, a volcano grows out of the largest pool of tar (after the mammoth in the diorama sinks into it), spewing a river of hot lava down Wilshire Boulevard.
- The pits were also featured in the final scene of the movie Miracle Mile, as well as several other movies representative of Los Angeles.
- In director Steven Spielberg's 1979 flop 1941, Captain Will Bill Kelso, played by John Belushi, shoots down a plane that he mistook for a Japanese plane into La Brea
- In Last Action Hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger falls into the tarpits and easily wipes himself clean, prompting the kid to point out that he (Arnold) is a character in a movie and not in the 'real' world.
- The tar pits are also featured in a key scene in "Alan Smithee's" Burn Hollywood Burn.
- The episode "That's Lobstertainment!" of Futurama depicts an animated version of the tar pits.
- In The Two Jakes a scene takes place at the La Brea Tar Pits.
- Hidden underneath the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits is the secret base of the heroes of Brian K. Vaughan's comic book Runaways.
- In Sin City, the tar pits in the fictional location of Basin City feature life-size model dinosaurs.
- In My Girl 2, a scene occurs in which Nick pretends to throw Vada's very special ring into the tar pits.
- In The Simpsons episode "Bart Gets an Elephant", they visit the tar pits.
- In the novel Mammoth by John Varley, a large part of the plot occurs in and around La Brea in the past and present.
- In the novel City of Bones by Michael Connelly The tar pits are mentioned in connection with Los Angeles oldest known murder victim who was murdered 9000 years ago.
- In the 1948 Warner Brothers cartoon "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea," Bugs Bunny is tunneling to Los Angeles intending to visit the La Brea Tar Pits and accidentally winds up in Scotland. *
- In an episode of The Animated Series, Kong and his human friends go to Los Angeles where they fight the series villain Ramone De La Porta in front of the La Brea Tarpits. The villains use the (non-existent) dinosaur bones in the pits to create monsters which Kong fights.
- In the comic Runaways by Marvel the team's current base is under the Pits.
- In the ABC sitcom Dinosaurs, which takes place in prehistoric times, there is a reference to the pits in Bob LaBrea, an ancient dinosaur chief, for which the main characters' school, LaBrea High School, is named, despite the fact that no dinosaur bones have been found in the Tar Pits.
External references
- Page Museum website.
- UCMP Berkeley website describes the geology and paleontology of the asphalt seeps.
- Setting the La Brea site in context.
Archaeological sites in the United States | Landmarks in Los Angeles | Los Angeles area museums | Paleontology | Pleistocene | National Natural Landmarks of the United States | Tourism in California
"La Brea Tar Pits"