LA BREA DISCOVERIES

at the

(Rancho La Brea) LA BREA TAR PITS

Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, California

This museum houses the Earth's richest and most important Ice Age fossil collection.  For thousands of years, asphalt has seeped to the earth's surface from an underlying oil field.  These seeps became unique death traps for countless Ice Age mammals and birds, making Rancho La Brea the world's richest deposit of Ice Age fossils.  Over 100 tons of fossil bones have been recovered.  More than 30 complete skeletons of fossil mammals & birds are on display. 

NO DINOSAURS were found at the Tar Pits (dinosaurs lived between 65 and 220 million years ago).  The prehistoric mammals found here - Mammoths, ground sloths, saber toothed cats and dire wolves - became trapped in the asphalt seeps between 11,000 and 40,000 years ago.  This museum is small enough to absorb within an afternoon, substantive enough to learn plenty.  A pleasant experience.  Photos of saber toothed cat statutes, and high relief front show these animals caught in the tar pit, being preyed upon by wildcats who themselves get mired.

 

The lake in front of the museum fills a quarry where asphalt was mined during the 19th century.  After the quarry was abandoned, rain and groundwater seepage soon filled the excavated area.  The surface oil slicks are composed of asphalt.  This and the bubbles of natural methane gas escape from fissures below the lake.

Life-sized fiberglass models of a Columbian mammoth family stand at the east end of the lake.  The mother has become trapped; her mate and offspring watch helplessly.  There is a life-sized model of an American mastodon near the west end of the lake.  

Block of bones from Pit 81

Mixed jaws in asphalt including saber-toothed cat jaw, an example of what scientists have to work with at the tar pits

PLEISTOCENE EXTINCTION 

Sometime between 5-14 thousand years ago, all these and many other mammals and birds in North & South America became extinct.  It is believed to be the climate change at the close of the Ice Age, and hunting by man that contributed to this.

(Bison Antiquus)

SKULLS of California Saber-tooth (Smilodon californicus), 

Extinct California Condor (Gymnogyps amplus), 

Mountain lion (Felis concolor),

Flat-headed Peccary (Platygomus); 

Coyote (canis latrans), 

Badger (taxidea taxus), 

Grey fox (Urocyon cineroargenteus), 

Striped skunk (Memphitis memphitis, 

Gopher (thomomys), 

lizard & snake bones, 

Spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius), and 

SKULLS of Extinct Camel (Camelops hesternus)

American Pronghorn Antelope (Antilocapra americana)

Shasta Ground Sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis)

Sloth skin bones (Harlan's ground sloth)

Black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)

California quail (Lophortyx californicus)

Antique Bison and Saber toothed cat skulls

Cutting edge prehistoric blades were glued to a wooden handle by asphalt and secured by animal tendons or sea grass cords.  Other artifacts found show how ancient peoples used asphalt in weapons, lures, tools and utensils

During the Ice Age, the growth of continental glaciers locked up millions of cubic miles of precipitation that would normally have gone into the oceans.  The absence of this water lowered the sea level more than 300 feet, creating a land bridge connecting Asia & North America.  Ancient peoples and mammals crossed the bridge to populate North America.

Woolly MAMMOTH (Mammuthus primigenius) two-thirds of actual size, they are smaller than Columbian mammoths, about the size of Asian elephants.

Scapula (shoulder blade) from Giant ground sloth

Merriam's Giant CONDOR (Teratornis merriami)

Diorama of Saber toothed CAT family

NAMED "ZED"

being worked on in the Paleontology Lab at the Page Museum

He had a rough life in the Ice Age, sporting a couple of broken ribs and a cancerous lesion on his jaw before dying at the age of 40 (60 is average).   Both tusks were found intact (a rare occurrence).

In 2006, an earth moving machine making a parking garage close to the Page Museum property came upon the skeleton by hitting the skull.   The museum paleontologists "tree-boxed" 23 crates of 2-3 million fossils from this site as quickly as possible, so contractors could continue their work.  It is now called Project 23.  For more info, link here to the Page Museum or read other news articles by typing in "Zed mammoth":

http://www.tarpits.org/project23/

http://www.nhm.org/news/archive/2009/Project23_Press_Release.pdf