Exploring the La Brea Tar Pits

As promised, here’s a little peek at some California adventures! Wee One #2′s Godparents were our first visitors since moving down here. They are some of our oldest friends but we’ve lived in different countries for the last nine years. They live on the west coast too and we are all so excited to be able to spend more time with each other! The La Brea Tar Pits was high in our list of places to see and our friends love, love, love museums so away we went. I learned so much!

Here’s a little background for you. The La Brea Tar Pits are a cluster of naturally occurring tar pits in the middle of Los Angeles. If you’ve heard of Hancock Park, that’s the park the city built around the tar pits. The tar here has been seeping up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. That itself is pretty amazing, and of course all the animals that have become trapped in the tar over all this time! The tar keeps the bones well preserved and I was really surprised at the kinds of animals found there like mammoths, wolves, horses, deer, llamas, camels (wait there were camels in LA at some point?!), bison, bears, ground sloths, even a woman (who has been dated at about 10,000 years!!) and of course the California state fossil, the saber toothed cat. Aside from things the general public would find interesting (there are also a lot of really beautiful gems found in the tar), there are all kinds of discoveries relevant to the scientific world like fossilized insects, plants and grains – not to mention 200-300 previously unknown species of bacteria!

All seven of us had a great afternoon wandering around Hancock Park and taking in the sites of all the different tar pits and the gardens surrounding them. We also spent hours inside the George C. Page Museum learning more about how the animals got trapped in the tar – and tested out an exhibit that gives you an idea of what it feels like to be trapped in it yourself!