July 23, 2007

  • The La Brea Tar Pits…

    ….are in downtown Los Angeles, and are pits of liquid asphalt in which hundreds of fossils have been found, such as mammoths.  Methane gas bubbles up through it, like this:



    Here are some additional photos:

    IMG_0991

    IMG_0994

Comments (3)

  • That’s fascinating!  I’ll have to google them and see what it is that causes that phenomenon!

  • Wow.  That’s realy cool!  THank you for elaborating.  Is it strange that I have never heard of them before?

  • Depends. Did you see the movie “Volcano”? The tar pits were prominently featured in it:

    “After a seemingly minor earthquake one night in Los Angeles, a giant burst of lava is released from the La Brea Tar Pits, resulting in the birth of a new volcano under the city. City officials are reluctant to believe scientists who notice the early warning signs (the temperature of a lake rises 6 degrees in 12 hours) but they learn their lesson when lava begins to spill out into the streets and to destroy buildings and cars. Dedicated Emergency Management director Mike Roark rushes to the rescue, with help from a plucky seismologist.”

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *