La Brea Tar Pits

Monday, March 5, 2007

Back when my friend was visiting we visited the La Brea Tar Pits, which I've been wanting to see ever since My Girl 2 (there's a scene that takes place there). Anyway, I knew there would be gated off tar pits to look at where many prehistoric/ice age animal fossils were found, but I didn't realize the tar would be elsewhere on the grounds and in the area. When crossing the street to get to the outdoor museum park, I could smell the tar fumes and spot some tar oozing out of the cracks in the sidewalk and in patches all along the pretty grounds around the pits. I even got to play with a stick in the tar and yes, this amused me.

la breaIt was surreal reading that bones from extinct species, like the sabor-toothed cat, have been escavted from these pitts, while children were now running up and down the steep grassy slope just yards away. The oldest fossil from Rancho La Brea is a wood fragment dated at around 40,000 years old and since 1906, more than one million bones have been recovered representing over 231 species of vertebrates. It just reminds you of how old our earth is and how much it has evolved, yet in this one area of Los Angeles you can practically step back in time to an era before people. It was especially creepy to see an art sculpture of a Wally Mammoth stuck in the tar as a child mammoth looks on at its mother from the safe banks. Distrubing. 

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