‘Pompeii, but in the middle of a massive city’: the ice age fossil site hidden in Los Angeles | West Coast

Los Angeles is known for its famous museums such as the Getty and Lacma, but perhaps fewer people know that – in the heart of the city – there is a museum that contains one of the most remarkable fossil sites in the world.

The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum are home to the remains of more than 2 million Ice Age flora and fauna, including mastodons and sabre-toothed cats, trapped in oily pools that still bubble today.

Since its opening in 1977, this unique site has attracted legions of tourists, school-age children and other visitors. It is perhaps best known for its vast, dark Lake Pit with a family of giant fiberglass mammoths in despair at their plight.

The research center, paleontology-themed museum, and 5.2-hectare (13-acre) public park are the only urban excavation sites active during the Ice Age in the world.

“There is almost no other fossil site in the world that has such a variety and number of fossils, with such quality of preservation,” said Emily Lindsey, the museum’s associate curator and dig site director. “It’s incredible; it’s like Pompeii, but in the middle of a huge city that we’ve been able to excavate and study on a large scale for over a century.”

Today, for the first time in its nearly 50-year history, big changes are underway. The museum is preparing to close its doors in July for a major two-year, $240 million renovation project that will transform the space and surrounding park.

The museum’s current structure, hidden among grassy hills, will remain largely the same, but the interior exhibition, research and learning spaces will be updated and reimagined. Spectacular pedestrian walkways, bridges and other new landscape features will create a dynamic and new experience for park visitors.

The project began in 2019 with a public process initiated by the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (which owns and operates the museum and surrounding park) with extensive community input. In 2023, the subsequent design competition awarded the project to the New York design firm Weiss/Manfredi. The firm has a history of designing notable parks and museums, such as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Welcome Center, the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, and Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park.

“It’s one of the only places where you can see the entire process of a scientific discipline in one visit,” Lindsey said, referring to the fact that the process from discovery to restoration of fossils takes place publicly on site. “As someone who is very concerned about scientific literacy and the current misunderstanding and distrust of science, this is a truly unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present the scientific process in a very intelligible and accessible way, and to get people to understand how it’s done and how it relates to their daily lives.”

TThe site’s colorful history was born from an unusual geological feature. An underlying fault has created an upwelling of oil that turns into pools of tar or asphalt when it reaches the air and biodegrades. This area was well known to the region’s first human inhabitants; For thousands of years, the Chumash people used tar to waterproof their boats.

The site took on new life at the turn of the 20th century during an oil boom in Los Angeles. Long before the Grove and Miracle Mile existed, oil derricks dotted the Wilshire Blvd corridor and much of the surrounding landscape. On then-private land known as Rancho La Brea, immediately adjacent to present-day Lacma, oil well excavation yielded an astonishing discovery: a treasure trove of tar-stained bones from creatures mostly extinct for at least 13,000 years.

The messy masses of bone were miraculously well preserved by the tar which had impregnated and enveloped them and thus prevented organic decomposition. Additionally, fossil samples preserve collagen, a boon for modern research since it allows for very precise carbon dating.

At the site, the task quickly shifted from drilling for oil to searching for fossils. During the peak years of excavations (1913-1915), approximately 750,000 remains were unearthed. Among these strange trophies were all manner of late Paleocene fauna and megafauna, such as American lions (larger than today’s African lions) and giant short-faced bears, which weighed up to 2,000 pounds and were among the largest land mammal carnivores to ever exist.

Indeed, 90% of the remains found belong to carnivores or scavengers, which suggests that the pits formed a trap for predators. According to this theory, a large herbivore like a mastodon would be unwittingly trapped in the tar seeps (which were likely camouflaged by water and fallen foliage), and its cries would attract predators. Unfortunately for predators, they will eventually succumb to the same fate as their prey.

As a result, approximately 59 species of mammals and 135 species of birds, as well as abundant plant and insect life, form the backbone of the more than 2 million specimens that have been unearthed in what the International Geoheritage Commission calls “the richest paleontological site on Earth for late Quaternary terrestrial fossils.”

TThe Weiss/Manfredi renovation will retain beloved features of the old site, such as the Lake Pit, a former quarry now filled with water and oil, and its sculptural, perpetually panicked inhabitants, while modernizing other, more dated elements.

The La Brea Tar Pits Museum, originally known as the George C Page Museum, is a significant example of Brutalist architecture. The museum, which houses the exhibits, extensive fossil collection and research center, is hidden on all sides in tall, grass-covered berms.

The footprint of the current museum will be retained, but the tropical-themed plants that occupy its courtyard will be replaced with native plants and trees more typical of Paleocene Los Angeles. An outdoor classroom will be created around the excavation sites, while new walkways and a pedestrian bridge hope to attract visitors who frequent more famous neighboring museums, such as Lacma and the Cinema Academy.

“Right now, you can be in the park and not even see a museum,” said Lori Bettison-Varga, president and director of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County. “You could be in the museum and not think about the connection to the tar pits themselves. So the whole project was about reimagining it as a real indoor-outdoor experience, more visible and accessible to the public.”

Inside, the museum will have a new look. The Fossil Lab, the on-site research center, will retain its iconic interior windows so museum visitors can still watch scientists and volunteers carry out the delicate work of preserving and restoring fossils. The collection will continue to grow and its storage facilities will be modernized.

Well-known statues and skeletons of species such as the short-faced bear, dire wolves and mastodons will remain – but instead of being isolated on their own mounts, the new exhibits will place them in dynamic dioramas aimed at creating a more complete appreciation of the inhabitants of Ice Age Los Angeles.

In a time of rapid climate crisis and species threat, the new exhibits will tell the story of the extinction of the megafauna that lived here, as well as the survival and resilience of species like the coyote. The goal is to engage and educate the public about Los Angeles before humans arrived, while connecting that past to our current need to wisely manage our ecosystems.

As the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum undergoes a physical renovation, it is also forming a new image that seeks to move beyond its former reputation as a museum primarily aimed at children.

“Of course we want kids to come and inspire their curiosity, wonder about their natural environment, understand the scientific process and think about their future and what they might do,” Bettison-Varga said. “But it’s a place for everyone, from cradle to cane.”