What are the La Brea Tar Pits?
The La Brea Tar Pits are a lagerstätte (German: place of storage, resting place), or extremely rich fossil bed, located in what is now downtown Los Angeles, California. La Brea means “the tar” in Spanish, so “The La Brea Tar Pits” is actual somewhat redundant. Many thousands of fossils have been extracted from the La Brea Tar Pits, all dating from the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Animals and plants started getting trapped in the tar about 38,000 years ago, and had been receiving a steady supply of new victims until the tar pits were turned into a tourist destination less than a century ago. The tar in the La Brea Tar Pits comes from an underground petroleum deposit leaking to the surface. The surface becomes covered in leaves and dust, causing animals to occasionally wander into it without knowing, sometimes becoming trapped. Predators probably gathered around the pits in ancient times, looking for a free meal, and got stuck themselves. Although unpleasant for the victims, this met
