A very exciting time for Los Angeles, as the world-famous La Brea Tar Pits introduces their all new excavator tour. Free with museum admission, with limited availability and required timed tickets. Reserve tickets online at tarpits.org
La Brea Tar Pits
In June of 2006, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) began work on a new underground parking garage. During the course of construction, 16 new fossil deposits were discovered, including the semi-articulated, largely complete skeleton of an adult mammoth.
La Brea Tar Pits New Excavator Tour
Rather than halting construction, paleontologists at the Page Museum worked with the team that was mitigating the fossil resources to build large wooden “tree” boxes around each deposit. Some of the larger deposits were split into more than one box, eventually resulting in the 23 fossil blocks that “Project 23” is named for. In 2008, the boxes were moved by crane and truck to their present location immediately north of the Pit 91 complex, and excavation began. In addition to the 23 tree boxes, there were also some 327 buckets of fossil material recovered from the LACMA salvage site for paleontologists to clean and sort through.
A quick view of the La Brea Tar Pits can be made during most of Glitterati Tours private sightseeing tours of Los Angeles.
