La Brea Tar Pits

http://www.tarpits.org/

I had heard of the Tar Pits, but didn't know what to expect. I've never seen Miracle Mile, and yes, one A-Team episode started there, but they showed so little of the grounds that it was kind of pointless. This is exactly what you would expect from a Season 5 Stockwell episode, however that episode was kind of what put the bug in Julie's ear to go, so I guess it accomplished something.

Therefore, since I knew nothing going in, there could only be surprises.

Surprise #1: You are very much in the middle of the city. I remember being similarly surprised with the Winchester House, but you can see how grounds would be sold off over time, and developed.

I guess it just shows that I don't know that much about excavation. You think of all of these remote digs, but you can find an old English monarch under a parking garage, and you can find millions of fossils in the heart of Los Angeles.

Surprise #2: Millions of fossils. Here is a quote from their page: "Since 1906, more than one million bones have been recovered representing over 231 species of vertebrates. In addition, 159 species of plants and 234 species of invertebrates have been identified. It is estimated that the collections at the Page Museum contain about three million items. Our current Project 23 excavation may, when completed, double this number."

Again, this is not my specialty but it still seems remarkably productive. There is so much ecological richness right here.

Surprise #3: Dire wolves are real. I haven't been watching "Game of Thrones", but I was reading the recaps on televisionwithoutpity.com, and so I had seen many references to dire wolves, which were supposed to be extinct, but then they found some. Also, dragons were supposed to be extinct, but now they are not. I thought the two things were equivalent, but until they find dragon fossils, there is no equivalency. Dire wolves are real.

Surprise #4: The tar is cold. It bubbles like it is boiling, and we are used to tar being heated for it's various uses, but no, it is cool to the touch, and the bubbling is caused by bacteria burping up methane, but it's not hot.

Surprise #5: It's an active site. As much as they have found, they are still finding it, and that bit about being in the middle of the city had an impact on that as well. To make way for a parking garage, boxes were built around deposits and moved for later sorting, leading to Project 23.

There's one more thing I had not thought about, but it totally made sense, that came from an article I read a few months after our visit:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/la-brea-tar-pits/?pid=2748&pageid=97320&viewall=true

As cool as the big fossils are, there are specific things that you learn better from the microfauna:

“The saber-tooth cats and the mammoth are great, but it’s the microfauna that really provides a look at what life was like here 10,000 or 20,000 years ago,” says Dr. John Harris, chief curator of the Page. “That sabertooth cat may have been simply passing through. But that field mouse lived here.”

I consider myself schooled.