Prehistoric Los Angeles

This is the Page Museum in Los Angeles. It's in Hancock Park sitting on 23 acres right in the middle of the city. It includes the La Brea Tar Pits. It's an amazing place - part of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. As you can see, I took these pictures in the spring of 2006.

Anyway, there was an interesting story on the television news, tonight, about an recent discovery when the museum was excavating for new construction.

...but first, a little background:

The La BreaTar Pits are tens of thousands of years old and this area of Los Angeles was home to more than 700 different species of prehistoric creatures including sabre-toothed tigers, American lions, mammoths, bears, all sorts of birds and sloths just to name a few.

Now, in this particular area, petroleum deposits seep up through the earth and methane gas is released which bubbles on the surface. Still to this day! This has been happening for as many as 40,000 years...since the last Ice Age.

So...when these prehistoric animals would wander into the tar (or "brea" in Spanish) they would become trapped and, of course, they would die. If a predator wandered in after an animal, it would also be doomed.

The Museum has thousands of fossils that it has gathered and documented but the most rare find of all is

"a well-preserved male Columbian mammoth fossil, about 80% complete, with 10-feet long intact tusks" (Source: "Science Daily" 2/18/09).

The paleontologists are calling him "Zed." So this is the story that was reported tonight on the 6 o'clock news!

I immediately remembered that I had taken photos at the Tar Pits a few years ago, and I went to hunt them up. Sure enough, I had loaded them on the computer. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Zed. They're still assembling him.

Here's the link to the Science Daily story which is absolutely fascinating...great article:

Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits (2009, February 19). Vast Cache Of Ice-age Fossils Uncovered At La Brea Tar Pits In Los Angeles. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 18, 2009, from ScienceDaily.com

Here are a couple of shots that I took from inside the museum the day we visited. Now I wish I had taken more.

This is just a smidgen of the really fascinating stuff you'll learn about the Tar Pits from the Official Website. Check it out. And if you're ever in L.A. you ought to visit in person. You won't be sorry. I promise.