"La Brea Woman La Brea Woman is the name for the only human whose remains have ever been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. The remains, first discovered in the pits in 1914, were the partial skeleton of a woman At around 18-25 years of age at death, she has been dated at 10,220–10,250 cal yr BP. and found associated with remains of a domestic dog, and so interpreted to have been ceremonially interred. The remains used to be on display in the George C. Page Museum, alongside a life-sized model thought to resemble the woman."
"at Rancho La Brea (Spanish for ""Tar Ranch"") in present-day Los Angeles, from which the priests obtained tar to waterproof the roofs of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel missions. Despite the abundance of well-known seeps in southern California, the first commercial oil well in California was drilled in Humboldt County, northern California in 1865. Some attempts were made in the 1860s to exploit oil deposits under tar seeps in the Ventura Basin of Ventura County and northeastern Los Angeles county. The early efforts failed because of complex geology, and, more importantly, because the refining techniques then available could not"
"scientific literature as early as 1875, but it was not until Orcutt collected saber-toothed cat, dire wolf, ground sloth and other fossils from the site that the scientific community recognized the value of the La Brea Tar Pits in understanding the late Pleistocene fauna and flora of North America. Orcutt eventually gave his fossil collection to John Campbell Merriam of the University of California. Because of his important role in developing the oil industry in the Western United States, in addition to Orcutt in California, the town of Orcutt in Colorado was also named in his honor. Paleontologists named the"
"known in the Los Angeles basin since prehistoric times, as the La Brea Tar Pits are a surface expression of the Salt Lake Oil Field; crude oil seeps to the surface along a fault, biodegrading to asphalt. The native inhabitants of the region used the tar for many purposes, including as a sealant, and the first European settlers found similar uses. In the mid-19th century, oil had become a valuable commodity as an energy source, commencing a period of exploration and discovery for the sources of the substance. By the 1890s, prospectors were drilling for oil in the basin, and"
"the La Brea Tar Pits at Los Angeles, California. These wolves, referred to as Rancho LaBrea wolves (""Canis lupus""), were not physically different from modern gray wolves, the only differences being a broader femur bone and a longer tibial tuberositythe insertion for the quadriceps and hamstring musclesindicating that they had comparatively more powerful leg muscles for a fast take-off before a chase. The Beringian wolf was more robust, and possessed stronger jaws and teeth, than either Rancho LaBrea or modern wolves. During the Late Pleistocene, the more southerly occurring dire wolf (""Canis dirus"") had the same shape and proportions as"
"occur in the La Brea Tar Pits and in the Dead Sea. Bitumen also occurs in unconsolidated sandstones known as ""oil sands"" in Alberta, Canada, and the similar ""tar sands"" in Utah, US. The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves, in three huge deposits covering , an area larger than England or New York state. These bituminous sands contain of commercially established oil reserves, giving Canada the third largest oil reserves in the world. Although historically it was used without refining to pave roads, nearly all of the output is now used as raw material for"
"instance, more than three million fossils from the last ice age have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Many more fossils are still in the ground, in various geological formations known to contain a high fossil density, allowing estimates of the total fossil content of the formation to be made. An example of this occurs in South Africa's Beaufort Formation (part of the Karoo Supergroup, which covers most of South Africa), which is rich in vertebrate fossils, including therapsids (reptile-mammal transitional forms). It has been estimated that this formation contains 800 billion vertebrate fossils. Palentologists"
"Sulfur content was not reported. In the 1890s, dairy farmer Arthur F. Gilmore found oil on his land, probably in the vicinity of the La Brea Tar Pits. The field was named after the Salt Lake Oil Company, the first firm to arrive to drill in the area. The discovery well was spudded (started) in 1902. Details of the discovery well – depth, exact location, production rate – are not known. Development of the field was fast, as oil wells spread across the landscape, with drillers hoping to match the production boom taking place a few miles to the east"
"Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene epochs. The Rancholabrean is preceded by the Irvingtonian NALMA stage. The Rancholabrean can be further divided into the substages of: The Rancholabrean shares this time period with the Oldenburgian of European Land Mammal Ages. Rancholabrean The Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from less than 240,000 years to 11,000 years BP, a period of . Named after the famed Rancho La Brea fossil site (more commonly known as the La Brea tar pits) in"
"today. This environment supported large herbivores that were prey for dire wolves and their competitors. A range of animal and plant specimens that became entrapped and were then preserved in tar pits have been removed and studied so that researchers can learn about the past. The Rancho LaBrea tar pits located near Los Angeles in southern California are a collection of pits of sticky asphalt deposits that differ in deposition time from 40,000 to 12,000YBP. Commencing 40,000YBP, trapped asphalt has been moved through fissures to the surface by methane pressure, forming seeps that can cover several square meters and be"
"Rancholabrean The Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from less than 240,000 years to 11,000 years BP, a period of . Named after the famed Rancho La Brea fossil site (more commonly known as the La Brea tar pits) in Los Angeles, California, the Rancholabrean is characterized by the presence of the genus ""Bison"" in a Pleistocene context, often in association with other extinct Pleistocene forms such as ""Mammuthus"". The age is usually considered to overlap the Middle"
"Henry Hancock Henry Hancock (April 11, 1822 – January 9, 1883) was a Harvard trained lawyer and a land surveyor working in California in the 1850s. He was the owner of Rancho La Brea, which included the La Brea Tar Pits. Henry Hancock was born in Bath, New Hampshire, a son of Thomas Hancock and his wife Lucy (Smith) Hancock, and grandson of Henry Hancock and Abigail (Cotton) Hancock. He was of English ancestry, his grandfather having emigrated from Somerset in the 18th century. Hancock entered the Norwich Military Academy, then studied law at Harvard University. Graduating in 1846, he"
"1968 more than 43 different mammals and 58 different birds had been identified. On June 29, 1952 the McKittrick Tar Pits were registered a ""California Historical Landmark"". McKittrick Tar Pits The McKittrick Tar Pits (also McKittrick Oil Seeps and McKittrick Brea Pits) are a series of natural asphalt lakes situated in the western part of Kern County in southern California. The pits are the most extensive asphalt lakes in the state. The McKittrick Tar Pits are one of the five natural asphalt lake areas in the world, the others being Tierra de Brea in Trinidad and Tobago, Lake Guanoco in"
"heavier than ""Smilodon"". About 80 American lion individuals have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, so their morphology is well known. Their features strongly resemble those of modern lions, but they were considerably larger, and are believed to have been the largest subspecies of lion. Preserved skin remains found with skeletal material thought to be from the American lion in caves in the Argentine Patagonia indicate that the animal was reddish in color. Cave paintings from El Ceibo in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina seem to confirm this, and reduce the possibility of confusion"
"prehistoric La Brea Coyote, ""Canis orcutti"", in honor of his discoveries at the La Brea tar pits. The 1920s residence, gardens, and orchards on the San Fernando Valley ranch he and his wife Mary used for vacations and their retirement estate was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, and bequeathed to the city of Los Angeles as the Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center. William Warren Orcutt William Warren Orcutt (February 14, 1869 – 1942) was a petroleum geologist who is considered a pioneer in the development of oil production in California, and the use of geology in the oil industry. He"
"drilled wells in the Ojai region between 1865 and 1867; one became California’s first ""gusher."" As early as 1856 a company began working the tar pits at La Brea Ranch, near Los Angeles, distilling some oil. Initially these oil discoveries were done by hand digging a well with pick and shovel or even tunneling (by hand) into a mountain that contained oil. By sloping the tunnels downward the oil ran out the mouth to be collected. Some of this oil was so thick that when pipelines were used they had to be heated in winter to get the oil to"
"the northern edge of the Los Angeles Basin, about two miles (3 km) south of the Hollywood Hills, the nearest portion of the Santa Monica Mountains. The Santa Monica Fault, not known to be active, demarcates the boundary between the basin and the mountains. Several other faults cut through the field, including the 3rd Street Fault and the 6th Street Fault; the latter of these is presumed to be the conduit through which crude oil has emerged on the surface as the La Brea Tar Pits, which are at Hancock Park at the southern boundary of the oil field, near"
"Orcutt, California Orcutt is an unincorporated town located in the Santa Maria Valley of California, and a census-designated place; it is in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Orcutt is named for William Warren Orcutt, the manager of the Geological, Land and Engineering Departments of the Union Oil Company. Known as the “Dean of Petroleum Geologists"" Orcutt is credited with discovering fossilized prehistoric animal bones preserved in pools of asphalt on the Hancock Ranch. These would be the first of many fossils excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits. In commemoration of Orcutt’s initial discovery, paleontologists named the La Brea"
"William Warren Orcutt William Warren Orcutt (February 14, 1869 – 1942) was a petroleum geologist who is considered a pioneer in the development of oil production in California, and the use of geology in the oil industry. He is also known for his contributions to paleontology, which brought the fossils of the La Brea Tar Pits to the attention of the scientific community. Orcutt was born in Dodge County, Minnesota on February 14, 1869. His family moved west and settled in Ventura, California, when he was 12 years old. After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in geology and"
"latter thanks to the wealth of specimens collected from the famed La Brea Tar Pits. The museum has almost 30 million specimens representing marine zoology. These include one of the largest collections of marine mammal remains in the world, housed in a warehouse off site, which at over 5,000 specimens is second in size only to that of the Smithsonian. The museum's collection of historical documents is held in the Seaver Center for Western History Research. The museum hosts regular special exhibitions which augment its collections and advance its mission. Recent special exhibits have included Mummies and Pterosaurs. The museum"
"Tar Pits (Los Angeles), McKittrick Tar Pits (McKittrick) and Carpinteria Tar Pits (Carpinteria) are all in the U.S. state of California. Lake Guanoco is in the Republic of Venezuela. The regional geology of southern Trinidad consists of a trend of ridges, anticlines with shale diapiric cores, and sedimentary volcanoes. According to Woodside, ""host muds and/or shales become over pressured and under compacted in relation to the surrounding sediments...mud or shale diapirs or mud volcanoes result because of the unstable semi-fluid nature of the methane-charged, undercompacted shales/muds."" The mud volcanoes are aligned along east-northeast parallel trends. Woodside goes on to say,"
"collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Dire wolf remains have been found across a broad range of habitats including the plains, grasslands, and some forested mountain areas of North America, and in the arid savannah of South America. The sites range in elevation from sea level to . Dire wolf fossils have rarely been found north of 42°N latitude, with five unconfirmed reports above this latitude. This range restriction is thought to be due to temperature, prey, or habitat limitations imposed by proximity to the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice"
"Hildegarde Howard Hildegarde Howard (April 3, 1901 – February 28, 1998) was the ""preeminent paleornithologist"", pioneering the field of avian paleontology. She was well known for her discoveries in the La Brea Tar Pits, such as the Rancho La Brea eagles. She was the first woman awarded the Brewster Medal and the first woman president of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. Howard's parents—her father, a scriptwriter, and her mother, a musician/composer—moved to Los Angeles in 1906. In 1920 she began attending what was then known as the Southern Branch of the University of California (later renamed UCLA). Her first"
"are aligned with east-west faulting. In the same area, Sulphur Mountain is named for the hydrogen sulfide-laden springs. The oil fields in the Sulphur Mountain area date from the 1870s. Production was from tunnels dug into the face of a cliff, and produced by gravity drainage. The petroleum fly (""Helaeomyia petrolei"") is a species of fly that was first described from the La Brea Tar Pits and is found at other California seeps as well. It is highly unusual among insects for its tolerance of crude oil; larvae of this fly live within petroleum seeps where they feed on insects"
"Ida Hancock Ross Ida Hancock Ross (1843 – 1913) was the owner of the Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles County, including the La Brea Tar Pits. Ida Haraszthy was born in Imperial, Illinois. Her mother, Eleonora Dedinsky, was a noblewoman of Polish descent whose family had lived in Hungary for centuries. Her father, Count Agoston Haraszthy, was a titled nobleman who had been exiled from Hungary for ""efforts to obtain freedom from what he considered despotism."" The family became the first Hungarians to become American citizens. They lived in Wisconsin for many years before moving to California. She married"
"ago. ""B. antiquus"" was the most common megafaunal species on the North American continent during much of the Late Pleistocene and is the most commonly found large animal found at the La Brea Tar Pits. In 2016, DNA extracted from ""Bison priscus"" fossil remains beneath a 130,000-year-old volcanic ashfall in the Yukon suggested recent arrival of the species. That genetic material indicated that all American bison had a common ancestor 135,000 to 195,000 years ago, during which period the Bering Land Bridge was exposed; this hypothesis precludes an earlier arrival. The researchers sequenced mitochondrial genomes from both that specimen and"
"Isotope studies of growth rings have shown that most of the mammoths died during spring and summer, which may have correlated with vegetation near the sinkhole. One individual, nicknamed ""Murray"", lies on its side, and probably died in this pose while struggling to get free. Deep footprints of mammoths attempting to free themselves from the sinkhole's mud can be seen in vertically-excavated sections of the site. Since the early 20th century, excavations at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles have yielded 100 tons of fossils from 600 species of flora and fauna, including several Columbian mammoths. Many of"
"Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center The Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center, formally known as Rancho Sombra del Roble, is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM #31) located in the West Hills section of Los Angeles, California, USA. Orcutt Ranch was the vacation and retirement estate of William Warren Orcutt, an early pioneer of oil production in California and the discoverer of one of the first prehistoric skeletons at the La Brea Tar Pits. The Rancho Sombra del Roble, Spanish for """"Ranch of the Shaded Oak"""", was originally a cattle ranch and citrus orchard at the foot of the Simi Hills. Orcutt bought"
"Hacienda Heights, and Rowland Heights. To the south are Whittier, La Habra Heights, and Brea. The Brea-Olinda Oil Field, discovered in 1880 and still producing in 2014, is in the southernmost portion of the hills adjacent to the city of Brea. The Puente Hills are in the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of the California Floristic Province. The remnant California native plants here are in the chaparral and oak woodland plant communities, with stands of . Vascular Plants of the Whittier Hills, a floristic study, was completed by Julie A. Schneider Ljubenkov and Timothy S. Ross (2001), and published in"
"vertebrates at the La Brea Tar Pits. He and his students categorized many of the vertebrate fossils found at the site, and many more were placed in storage. The smilodon was later established as the California state fossil. In 1918 he co-founded the Save the Redwoods League, which began significant preservation efforts after Merriam traveled the Redwood areas of Humboldt County, California in 1922 seeking to spare its old-growth the effects of logging he witnessed in Redwood forests closer to San Francisco. A biography, which details his efforts to preserve wild lands in California and throughout the United States, was"
"Grus pagei Grus pagei is an extinct crane reported from the upper Pleistocene asphalt deposits of Rancho La Brea, Los Angeles, California. It is one of three cranes present at Rancho La Brea, the others being the living whooping crane (""Grus americana"") and sandhill crane (""Grus canadensis""). It is the smallest of the three cranes, and it had a relatively longer, more slender skull than the living cranes. At least 11 individuals are represented by 42 fossil bones. Described by Kenneth E. Campbell, Jr. in 1995, it was named after the philanthropist responsible for the museum at the tar pits,"
"source, by long-term seepage of crude oil to the ground surface along the 6th Street Fault, of the famous La Brea Tar Pits. The adjacent and geologically related South Salt Lake Oil Field, not discovered until 1970, is still productive from an urban drillsite it shares with the nearby Beverly Hills Oil Field, also run by Plains Exploration and Production. The field is one of many in the Los Angeles Basin. Immediately to the west is the San Vicente Oil Field, and to the southwest the large Beverly Hills Oil Field. To the east are the Los Angeles City Oil"
"John Campbell Merriam John Campbell Merriam (October 20, 1869 – October 30, 1945) was an American paleontologist, educator, and conservationist. The first vertebrate paleontologist on the West Coast of the United States, he is best known for his taxonomy of vertebrate fossils at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, particularly with the genus ""Smilodon"", more commonly known as the sabertooth cat. He is also known for his work to extend the reach of the National Park Service. He was born in Hopkinton, Iowa, the eldest child of postmaster, store proprietor, and American Civil War veteran Charles E. Merriam."