Page Museum/La Brea Tarpits (Doug Foster)

2) Saber-Tooth struts down Wilshure, and comes home to the Tar Pits (2:26) Cute video features Page

Museum's saber-tooth puppet. The story behind the puppet can be found here.

Description:

Background:

The La Brea Tar pits are a collection of petroleum seeps in Southern California. They are one of Earth's six known asphalt lake complexes. At the time of its discovery by the Spanish in in 1769, asphalt from the seeps was already being used by native Californians as a waterproofing agent. Terms describing the black ooze welling up from the ground at La Brea have have some very interesting etymologies. "Brea" is the Spanish word for "tar," which can be derived from a number organic substances through a type of distillation. When the starting material of the distillation is petroleum, one resulting product is a black semisolid called asphalt, asphaltum, or bitumen. Any petroleum distillate having these semisolid qualities is called "pitch." The asphalt lake found in Trinidad is called "Pitch Lake" and the phrase "pitch black" refers to the color of pitch. The word "tarmac" also owes a part of it's etymology to the word "tar," although the lineage is not straightforward.

Recent History:

The first European to own rights to the land was a Portuguese sailor named Antonio Jose Rocha. The property changed hands as California passed from Spanish rule to U.S. statehood, and was obtained by Henry Hancock around 1870. Hancock established a business mining and selling asphalt throughout California. Bones found in the tar pits were initially thought to be those of domesticated animals and/or living species. In 1875 a visiting paleontologist from Massachusetts named William Denton recognized that the bones belonged to extinct animals, but his observations went largely unnoticed. That conclusion were repeated by a Union Oil geologist name William Orcutt in 1901. This time the scientific community took note. Between 1901 and 1908 a number of individuals contributed to the growing recognition that Rancho La Brea was a significant paleontological site. These included Dr. L.H. Miller of L.A. Normal School (later to become UCLA), J.Z. Gilbert of Los Angeles High School, E. Fisher of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, and Dr. John Merriam, from U.C. Berkeley. Merriam published some of the findings in 1908. After 1908, the excavation of fossils from La Brea accelerated. Henry Hancock's son, Allen, developed a lucrative oil business on the site, but the Hancock family allowed the fossil digs to continue. The Southern California Academy of Sciences collaborated with the city of Los Angeles to build the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles in 1911. When the doors were opened in 1913, fossils that had been accumulating at Los Angeles High School and various other locals found a home.

George Allan Hancock donated the 23 acres that now comprise Hancock Park to the City of Los Angeles. In 1913 he gave the Natural History Museum exclusive rights to excavate the pits within. Hancock believed strongly that the park should be made accessible to the people of Los Angeles, and his donation was made with the stipulation that the "scientific features of the site be preserved." The Park is now under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation.

Two other individuals deserve mention and were instrumental in bringing the Page Museum to life. Chester Stock and of course, George Page. Stock was one of the most accomplished paleontologist to work the tar pits in the first half of the 20th century, and was an advocate for building a museum on site to house and display the fossils. With his unexpected death in 1950, the desire to build a museum abated. The cause was picked up 25 years later by a successful businessman and philanthropist named George C. Page. The result was a museum that houses the world's richest collection of Pleistocene fossils

The Museum is one of 3 LA County Museums. The mission statement of this family of museums is " to inspire wonder, discovery, and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds."

The Page Museum lies within Hancock Park at the site of the original tar seeps (not the community of Hancock Park).

Audience and Science Concepts Addressed:

The Page Museum houses the most extensive collection of Pleistocene fossils in the world. It caters to the entire spectrum of the community of people interested in paleontology, offering programs that range from educational shows for pre-schoolers to opportunities in active research. There are extensive resources for K-12 students, mostly in the sciences, but there are also exhibits that shed a fascinating light on the role of the petroleum industry had in the affairs of Los Angeles at the turn of the last century. The museum has exhibits that support the following content areas.

- Anatomy- comparative skeletal structures

- Taxonomy- compare and contrast skeletons of displayed mammals and birds

- Paleontology- the skeletons on display allow students to make inferences about those organism's survival strategies

- Evolution- skeletons also illustrate a paradox recognized by Darwin; similarities suggest relationships, differences

suggest change over time.

- Ecology- each layer of the tarpits contain comprehensive snapshots of the communities present at the time of

deposition.

- Microbiology- in 2007 researchers from UC Riverside researchers from U.C. Riverside announced that the seeps had

thriving communities of bacteria and archeans.

- Chemistry- lots of possible talking points about petroleum chemistry

- Geology- one definition of geology is the study of the Earth's history as recorded in rocks.

Worksheets

Option 1: Using a Dichotomous Key- Students can work individually or in groups. There are 16 possible stations to start

at.

Fig. 4. Page 1 of Dichotomous Key Fig. 5 Page 2 of Dichotomous Key

Students/other: Dichotomous Key Worksheet . Allow for 5 minutes/station. After identifying each organism to order, student should work in pairs for the remainder of the 5 minutes learning the major bones of the human skeleton. (answers on the back).

Option 2 : Instructors will give a number to each student. The number will correspond to a species that has been pulled

from the tar. Fill in the data sheet below. Wikipedia is an EXCELLENT source, and has entries for MANY La

Brea species. Click HERE to see an example (the platypus). If the species is on display in the museum or on

the grounds,mark the spot with a red "X."

The WORKSHEET is available HERE. The Species LISTS are available HERE.

Fig. 6 1st page of Wiki species sheet. Fig. 7 2nd page of Wiki species data sheet.

Fig. 8 Page one of list of La Brea Species

Additional Resources:

Copy of Museum map available at Page Ticket Desk...... here

Copy of Page Museum Map with stations....................... here

Copy of Hancock Park Map............................................here

References

Harris, J.M., ed. (1988) Rancho La Brea, Death Trap and Treasure Trove. Toppan Printing Co., China

Harris, J.M., ed. (1985) Rancho La Brea, Treasures of the Tar Pits. Colornet Press, Los Angeles

Stock, C. (1992). Rancho La Brea: A record of Pleistocene life in California. 7th ed. Revised by J.M. Harris. Science Series

no.37. Los Angeles: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 113 pp.

(source of species list)