Rancho La Brea Photo Album

I was invited to give some talks in southern California and my spare time allowed for an exciting visit to one of my favorite sites in the Los Angeles area, the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.  Now in their one hundredth year of excavation, the site has yielded over 600 species to date with a NISP of over 3.5 million (not counting over 200 species of bacteria).  It’s a remarkable place and I feel privileged to to have been given an excellent personal tour by none other than Dr. John Harris and Curator/Collections Manager Gary Takeuchi.  Tar still bubbles and oozes and excavations continue, thanks in part to continuing growth of this highly urbanized area.

Although most of the tar seeps are closed off for safety, a couple can still be accessed with a guide.  The surface is just as deceptive as it is described…