Tar pits, sometimes referred to as asphalt pits, are large asphalt deposits. They form in the presence of petroleum, which is created when decayed organic matter is subjected to pressure underground. If this crude oil seeps upward via fractures, conduits, or porous sedimentary rock layers, it may pool up at the surface. The lighter components of the crude oil evaporate into the atmosphere, leaving behind a black, sticky asphalt. Tar pits are often excavated because they contain large fossil collections.
The La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Over many centuries, the bones of trapped animals have been preserved. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. La Brea Tar Pits is a registered National Natural Landmark.
The dire wolf is an extinct canine. The dire wolf lived in the Americas during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs. The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found. Two subspecies are recognized: Aenocyon dirus guildayi and Aenocyon dirus dirus. The largest collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the largest natural and historical museum in the western United States. Its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and artifacts and cover 4.5 billion years of history. This large collection comprises not only of specimens for exhibition, but also vast research collections housed on and offsite.
Rancho La Brea was a 4,439-acre (17.96 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California, given in 1828 to Antonio Jose Rocha and Nemisio Dominguez by José Antonio Carrillo, the alcalde of Los Angeles. Rancho La Brea consisted of one square league of land of what is now Wilshire's Miracle Mile, Hollywood, and parts of West Hollywood. The grant included the famous La Brea Tar Pits.
La Brea Avenue is a prominent north-south thoroughfare in the City of Los Angeles and in Los Angeles County, California.
Henry Hancock was a Harvard trained lawyer and a land surveyor working in California in the 1850s. He was the owner of Rancho La Brea, which included the La Brea Tar Pits.
George Allan Hancock was the owner of the Rancho La Brea Oil Company. He inherited Rancho La Brea, including the La Brea Tar Pits which he donated to Los Angeles County. He also developed Hancock Park, Los Angeles. He was vice president of the Los Angeles Hibernian Bank, treasurer of the Los Angeles Symphony Association, and president of the Automobile Association of Southern California. He owned the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, established Rosemary Farm, and developed the Santa Maria Ice and Cold Storage Plant.
The Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center, formally known as Rancho Sombra del Roble, is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument located in the West Hills section of Los Angeles, California, USA.
Bonnie Carolyn Templeton was an American botanist. She served as curator of botany for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 1929 to 1970, a time when women in science were uncommon.
The McKittrick Tar Pits are a series of natural asphalt lakes situated in the western part of Kern County in southern California. The pits are the most extensive asphalt lakes in the state.
La Brea Woman was a human whose remains were found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. The remains, first discovered in the pits in 1914, are the partial skeleton of a woman. At around 18–25 years of age at death, she has been dated at 10,220–10,250 years BP. These are the only human remains to have ever been discovered at the La Brea Tar Pits.
Grus pagei is an extinct crane reported from the upper Pleistocene asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea, Los Angeles, California. It is one of three cranes present at Rancho La Brea, the others being the living whooping crane and sandhill crane. It is the smallest of the three cranes, and it had a relatively longer, more slender skull than the living cranes. At least 11 individuals are represented by 42 fossil bones. Described by Kenneth E. Campbell Jr. in 1995, it was named after the philanthropist responsible for the museum at the tar pits, George C. Page.
William Warren Orcutt was a petroleum geologist who is considered a pioneer in the development of oil production in California, and the use of geology in the oil industry. He is also known for his contributions to paleontology, which brought the fossils of the La Brea Tar Pits to the attention of the scientific community.
Paleontology in California refers to paleontologist research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of California. California contains rocks of almost every age from the Precambrian to the Recent.
Hildegarde Howard was an American pioneer in paleornithology. She was mentored by the famous ornithologist, Joseph Grinnell, at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) and in avian paleontology. She was well known for her discoveries in the La Brea Tar Pits, among them the Rancho La Brea eagles. She discovered and described Pleistocene flightless waterfowl at the prehistoric Ballona wetlands of coastal Los Angeles County at Playa del Rey. In 1953, Howard became the third woman to be awarded the Brewster Medal. She was the first woman president of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. Hildegarde wrote 150 papers throughout her career.
A list of prehistoric and extinct species whose fossils have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits, located in present-day Hancock Park, a city park on the Miracle Mile section of the Mid-Wilshire district in Los Angeles, California.
Capromeryx was a genus of dwarf pronghorns (Antilocapridae) that originated in North America during the Pliocene about 5 million years ago. The closest living relative and only surviving member of the family is the North American pronghorn.
Chester Stock was an American paleontologist who specialized in the Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Rancho La Brea tar pits. He served as a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
