La Brea Tar Pits

When I was twenty years old I traveled by bus to Los Angeles, California. I went to visit a friend who had recently moved to Los Angeles. While I was there, I remember going to the ocean, Disneyland and the La Brea Tar Pits. The pits looked like a dark gooey pond and it was right in the middle of the city.

Fifty some years later, a few weeks ago,  I again visited the tar pits and I was a bit more curious this time. I found out that it is natural asphalt bubbling up from the ground and has been doing this for thousands of years.
The area is known for the huge oil reserves in Southern California. Through the years animal, tree, insect and plant fossils  have been found in the pits.  On an Internet program about the La Brea Tar Pits, I found out that "six hundred and one species of ice age fossils were removed from the tar pits."
We did not go to the museum that featured many of the fossils found in the pits. Looking through the fence I could see the black tar as it continues to bubble as it has for eons.

"I grew up in Los Angeles, and I was always fascinated

by the La Brea Tar Pits right in the middle of the city,

in an area called the miracle mile,

for crying out loud, bubbling goo.

And down in the muck, there are all

these amazing fossils:

mammoth and saber tooth cat and dire wolf."

Greg an Eekhout