La Brea
The La Brea tar pits are near Beverley Hills and were the first of three tourist attractions Sarah and I went to. They were really good. The outside part reminded me a lot of Rotorua, but instead of smelling of sulphur it smelt of warm tarmac (unsurprisingly really!).
The tar pits have been trapping animals for tens of thousands of years. There are models of mastodons about to walk to their death in the main pit which has a layer of water over the tar.
One of the pits is being excavated and you can watch. It’s only excavated during the summer because the warmer temperature makes it slightly easier to work although it’s still solid. There are loads of macrofossils but they have become increasingly interested in the microfossils such as rodent teeth and plant pieces which can provide a lot of information about the environment back when they were deposited.
The museum is well-stocked with fossils. The highlights are sabre-tooth cats (not tigers), mastodons and dire wolves. These wolves were very common and over 1,600 skulls have been recovered. There is a wall covered in a small selection of them which really gave a good idea of just how common they were.
I really liked the tar pits. I was a bit worried they’d be gimmicky with bad animatronics and no real science. Instead the animatronics were quite cool and there was a lot of science and great displays.
The tar pits have been trapping animals for tens of thousands of years. There are models of mastodons about to walk to their death in the main pit which has a layer of water over the tar.
One of the pits is being excavated and you can watch. It’s only excavated during the summer because the warmer temperature makes it slightly easier to work although it’s still solid. There are loads of macrofossils but they have become increasingly interested in the microfossils such as rodent teeth and plant pieces which can provide a lot of information about the environment back when they were deposited.The museum is well-stocked with fossils. The highlights are sabre-tooth cats (not tigers), mastodons and dire wolves. These wolves were very common and over 1,600 skulls have been recovered. There is a wall covered in a small selection of them which really gave a good idea of just how common they were.
I really liked the tar pits. I was a bit worried they’d be gimmicky with bad animatronics and no real science. Instead the animatronics were quite cool and there was a lot of science and great displays.
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