WEBVTT - How the La Brea Tar Pits Work 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:12.600 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.560 Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.360 there making our lives difficult. And uh so that as 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.799 usual means it's time for stuff you should that's right. Yes, 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:27.520 how are you, my friend? I'm good? Good, yeah, well healthy, 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.720 feel a little tubby, but yeah, oh yeah, I'm okay. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.640 That just means you've been living, right, that's my motto. 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.840 It's sugar cookies, yeah, which I like. Yeah, you gotta 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.720 have sugar cookies sometimes. So I leave for l A 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.760 in the morning, where the home of the Librarea tart pits. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.640 I didn't realize that you were doing the intro or 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.240 should I call it Pueblo Dave nuestra senora la de 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.920 los Angeles. I want us, I think. So it's hard 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.440 to hear that los Angeles without thinking it really is. Yeah, 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.400 but yes, that was the original name of Los Angeles, Chuck, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.680 did you know that before this? Yeah? I did not. Sure. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.400 That's a mouthful. I can see why everybody just calls 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.399 it Los Angeles. Or if you're really hip l A, yeah, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.480 or if you're a jackass city of angels. That's like 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:23.160 people do Hotlanta. Yeah, some people say that you can 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.800 get a magnet still, that says Hota. Yeah, well, no 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.960 one in it or from Atlanta says that. That's a 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.800 total outsider thing. You don't think they make Atlanta magnets 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.959 in Atlanta. Yeah, but they saw him at the airport, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.080 you know, Atlanta people selling it. That's like saying Nevada 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.000 instead of Nevada. Is that really how it's supposed to 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.000 be pronounced Nevada? Yeah? Man, you don't hear everyone every 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.000 time they don't see those emails from angery Nevadas Nevadians. 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.000 After a while, they just kind of all become a blur. Yeah, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:56.920 we get taken the dank for that. And I said, 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.720 you know what, everyone outside Nevada says, Nevada I hate 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.400 to break. Yeah, like everybody. And they say, you know what, 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.320 everyone outside of Atlanta says Hotlanta. I don't think they 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.760 say that. Some people do, but now I don't. I 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:09.400 don't hold the grudge against you. If you say it, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.519 I just pretend you aren't there. Okay, you know, you 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.880 just ignore Hot Lanta. Uh So that was my intro. 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:18.640 That was a good one, man. I think you should 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.840 do one and people should vote. Oh here is mine, Chuck. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.400 Have you ever been to Los Angeles? You used to 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.160 live there, didn't you. Yeah, and you've been to the 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.880 Break of tar Pits obviously a bunch of times. Surely 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.079 I've been on to you. And I went to LACMA. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.200 I had no idea. It was like right there, mid 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.560 Wiltshire Miracle Mile. It's like you you walk out the 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.320 back entrance into a Japanese garden at at the Los 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.040 Angeles County Museum of Art BLACKMA, and you just keep 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.120 walking a little further and all of a sudden there's 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.400 a huge masted on and then you go into the 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.200 museum that time forgot it was closed while we were there, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.320 And I'm really sad, especially after reading this article. The 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.560 page museum is what it's called. Are they Did they 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.079 update it? I think they might have updated it. No, no, no, 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.160 I mean like it was closed for the day. Oh 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:09.239 like we spent all of our time in Lachmen and 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.320 then came out. It was close for the David mm hmmm. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.320 I think they may have updated. I think they did 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:16.880 very recent since I left because when I went in 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.840 when I was living there in late two thousands or 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:25.280 late nineties, early two thousand's, it was delightfully old. Yeah, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.560 well it was open in seventy seven. Yeah, it looked 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:32.360 pretty untouched, mechanical mastodon's inside that we're all like clunky 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.000 and oh no, I'm really we gotta go back. Yeah, 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.920 it's pretty neat the herky jerky masthodon. And they could 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.560 tell they were old. Yeah, not in the ways that 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.080 mastodons are supposed to be old. From the seventies. Yeah. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:47.760 So no, I haven't been to the Page Museum, but 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.600 I have been to the tar pits themselves. And tar 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:55.480 pits actually is a misnomer. Yeah, they're actually they should 0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:00.600 be called asphalt pits or bitumen pits because tar is 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.600 derived from coal and these pits are derived from petroleum. Yeah, 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.880 so that's there's the fact of the podcast. Sadly is 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.840 it is that the fact that the podcast, Yeah, the 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.320 oil crude oil steeps up through fissures in the Earth's 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.600 crust and then some of that evaporates, and that leaves 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.920 behind that tar asphalt asphalt. But let's go back even 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.640 further than that. These tar pits leabre of tar pits, 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.200 which are basically for anybody who hasn't been there, if 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.560 you're walking around the grounds of the tar pits, there's 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.200 just basically black ponds that look like they have oil 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.560 slicks on top of them. Then when you look a 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.839 little close, you're like, oh, it's all oil. Yeah. Every 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:40.480 once in a while there's a bubble coming up here 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.280 there quite a bit uh and um again there's like 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:49.120 a huge masted on coming out like a model coming 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.800 out of the out of the one of the pits. 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.320 It's pretty cool, well, not quite coming out, but trying 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.039 to write, he's never gonna come out. You never made 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.240 that played out as a film that he would make 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.520 it out right. Um. And that's the whole reason that 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.200 the tar pits are even um have fences and a 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.479 plastic masted on in the first place. Because many many 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.880 millions of years ago, Los Angeles was underwater. There's a 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.640 lot of aquatic life that lived and died in that area, 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.000 and uh went to the bottom, and over time we're 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:26.680 compressed into the fossil fuel petroleum fossil fuel. Yes, yeah, 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.400 And then as the ice age came and the waters 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.880 were seated and were locked into glaciers up north um 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.240 that land became drier and as a result, like you said, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.440 that bit Chaman started coming up through fissures in the 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.160 ground and has been ever since. Those are the Librea 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.560 tar pits. That's right, and uh in those pits, we're 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:52.240 talking about the Pleistocene epoch, which is about two point 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.040 six million to eleven thousand, seven hundred years ago. And 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:00.360 the neat thing is is except for a handful, well 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.400 more than a handful, except for some of these huge 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:04.960 land mammals that they found, a lot of the animals 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.120 are the same as they are now. And this was 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.440 the last time we had major climate cooling, So studying 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.680 these fossils can like, we can learn more about our 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.080 climate from studying these things than I don't know what 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.560 I was halfway those sentence was like, wait a minute, 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.520 I don't know what part two is, but yeah, I 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.400 think you made the point. Yeah, but that's how they 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.080 You know, you can learn a lot from uh future 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.680 climates by studying past climates, right exactly, And that's one 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.880 of the things that they're doing now. There's kind of 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.040 a second wind that's going on the Libreo tar pits. 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.840 The first win came about what we should say, Um, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.520 Since the LaBrea tar pits made their first debut about 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.520 forty tho years ago, it's been they've been successfully trapping 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.840 animals of all sorts and not just animals of plant 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.920 life too. Yea mostly carnivores though, yes, And there's a 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.960 reason that there's mostly carnivores. They figured it out because 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:02.560 there is a disproportionate amount of carnivores in the Librea 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:07.320 tar pits. Yeah, which is way more than there were 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:14.480 carnivores proportionately speaking during the Pleistocene epoch, specifically this last 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.360 year era. Um. And they they think they haven't figured 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:24.640 out why. Well, it makes total sense. Animal gets stuck 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.440 in tarpit, bigger animal comes along and wants to eat 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.560 that animal, it gets stuck in tarpit, and maybe even 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.440 a bigger animal wants to eat both of those it 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.800 gets stuck in tarpit. Yeah. Well, plus also a lot 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.080 of carnivores hunting packs. So if they're like, well, this 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.800 stupid mastodon can't get out of this black pond, I'm 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.280 going in after him. Let's all go in after him. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.640 Everybody gets stuck pretty much it. Yeah, that's why there's 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.000 more carnivores. That's why they're just proportionately represented. Yeah, it's 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.360 actually I said he talking about the mastodon outside the 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.120 fake one. I believe it's if I remember correctly, a mama. 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:01.800 Oh yeah, there's babies, and there's babies like on the 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.320 shore and the mama is trapped and it's really kind 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.120 of sad, is what they picked there. But I guess 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.280 that was the realism of the place to see an 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.640 epoch these mommy goes hunting and doesn't come back. It's right, 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.200 it's like, yeah, and you can. I think I've told 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.000 this story before. I was shooting there once on a 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.840 TV commercial and I was far away from the uh 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.120 the large pools, and I was standing there and I 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.240 looked down and there was a little two foot diameter 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.680 pool of tar right by my feet. Yeah, I mean, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:34.679 they're not all walled up and fenced off, and it 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.640 was bubbling. Uh you know what that is, by the way, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.240 the it's methane, I guess, yeah, from bacteria they found out. 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.439 So that was only like five or six years ago 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:46.719 that they've learned that. And they discovered like two d 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:50.200 new kinds of bacteria that's neat petroleum loving bacteria. Yeah, 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.040 that's great, and that it's still burping even in these 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.559 tiny little puddles. Yeah, and they're the even the big 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.280 puddles are only about twelve ft deep. Yeah. It's just 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:06.480 like meat or something like that for our non Liberian friends. Yeah. Yeah, so, um, 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.640 the tar pits have been just trapping animals, like you said, 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.880 even there's lots of recent animals in it. They found. 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.800 They still find cattle bones. Rodney Dangerfield, Yeah, he was 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.160 found in there. Apparently there was a Los Angeles um 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.480 Police Department scuba diver that dove into the pits to 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.280 retrieve evidence for cold murder case and was successful apparently. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.240 But he said, like I've dived all over the place 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.400 looking for evidence. He said, that was the craziest dive 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:41.400 I've ever made. He's scuba dived in the tar pit. Wow. Yeah. 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:46.080 And the article I read wasn't really um big on detail. 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.199 They wouldn't even say what evidence he was looking for. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.839 It must be less dense as you go, because the 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:53.719 tar that I've seen it's like, I mean, it's like 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.520 road tards, so thick. I don't see how you can move. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.439 I would think scuba diver gets trapped. I think it's 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.760 probably more dense towards the bottom, and if you're a 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.040 masted on, you're like, it's probably quick sandy, and this 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.280 guy was probably avoiding the bottom. Plus I'm sure there 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.160 are a lot of people like pulling him out. Yeah. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.880 I think that bad Roblow movie they he did a 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.880 buried body in there. Yeah, I mean it's what was 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.920 what was that bad that influence bad influence bad behavior, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:24.439 familiar bad something bad movie that's probably pretty bad. This 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.520 is before Rob Blow had his comeback. This is the 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.280 post sex stape years. Oh yeah, when he was just 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.800 trying to hang in there, trying to hang in there. Yeah, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.480 we don't make it back row Blow. But they got 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.840 all kinds of like sabre tooth tigers and dire wolves 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:43.199 and like original original native horses to North America that 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.920 don't exist anymore. There used to be horses here. There 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.840 used to be camels, and they're not like the European 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.679 horses that everyone thinks their horses here. You're focusing on 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.199 the horses. There used to be camels here, I know. 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.000 And like you said, sabre tooth tigers they found about 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.520 um four thousand of those. The higher wolf they found 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.640 about two thousand dire wolves so far. Um and then uh, 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.959 they also found something called the American lion. This thing 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.880 was the coolest animal in North America ever. Right. They 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:19.040 got up to eight ft long four ft at the haunches. Um. 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.679 They weighed something like up to seven seventy five pounds, 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.240 which is three These are giant mantals. They were about 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.720 larger than an African lion. They were huge. If they 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.160 wanted you dead, you were dead. Not like these lions 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:39.640 these days. They're lazy. This American lion would have just 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.559 taken your head clean off and burt. All sorts of 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:50.040 flightless predator or flightless flying predators in the sky. Yeah, um, 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.320 they're in apparently. So far they found six hundred sixty species, 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.800 fifty nine mammal species, a hundred and thirty five bird species, 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.839 tons of everything from like mall asks to um. The 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.120 new bacteria you're talking about, the libre tarpets have been 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:10.040 so vital and providing a picture of um, the of 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.760 life during the late Paleozoic that the error the time 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.480 period from three hundred thousand years ago to the end 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.040 of the UM not Paleozoic. Did I say that, I 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:26.319 meant Pleistocene. So the three hundred thousand years to the 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.120 end of the Pleistocene is called the Rancho Lebray in 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.719 all one word land mammal age. They renamed it for 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.760 all this activity. Right. Yeah, like that's how important these 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.719 little pits of bitumen are. And we'll talk about how 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:46.600 all of this was discovered in just a moment. So chuck, 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:52.080 if this, if these are basically pools of bubbling crude, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.720 sticky asphalt, how did a bone ever get pulled out 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.000 of it? Well, because of progress, my friend, and the 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.800 fact that Los Angeles was not going to uh sorry, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:12.920 Pueblo de Arienna de Los Angeles. Um, it was bound 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.079 to be developed because of the weather there and the 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.520 beautiful Pacific coast and um, so progress people came along 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.600 and started making a city there, and uh, it's such 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:29.040 a volatile area. They realized, hey, this is you know, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.000 this is dangerous this area right here until let's start 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.559 drilling for oil. Yeah. And it was I think the 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.160 Hancock family, Yeah, of Hancock Park fame, which is right 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:43.480 there as well. I'm more McArthur Park person. Yeah. Wow, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.160 it's a good song. Okay, I thought you met you 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:50.240 just like scoring cheap drugs and literally someone leaving a 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.640 cake out in the rain. Yeah. MacArthur Parks not the 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.120 greatest area, no, but it's a it was a good, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.640 good song. Yeah. But Hancock Park boy, is that nice? Well? Sure, yeah, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.319 I say that like it should be obvious, but I 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.880 don't know where. Yeah, it is nice. Okay, so we're 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.800 talking about progress. Yes, the Hancock family in eighteen seventy 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.920 started drilling for oil and they basically the pits have 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:17.760 been used um since by Paleo Indians for things like 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.720 um waterproofing canoes and stuff that stuff. You want to 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:23.800 patch a hole in a canoe, Sure, you can do 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.760 a lot worse than asphalt. Yeah, because before that was 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.720 before what's that like a new miracle tape that they make. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.400 It's like one of those products you see on TV 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.640 type things. The only one I'm familiar with is that 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.160 spray that the guy on the clear PLEXI class boat 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.360 to holes drilled in. Yeah, this get stuff. But we 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.240 don't buzz market here, no, because we don't remember the 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.360 names of anything. That's true. But back then, this tar man, 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.320 I mean that was like that was magic to the 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:54.320 to the Native America and it's just sitting there just 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.480 don't get too close. And then when the Spaniards came 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.880 in and started using that area for cattle rustling. Uh, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.720 they used it also for waterproofing for their roofs. They 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.240 also used it as fuel. Um. And then once the 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.160 Hancock family started digging for oil, they kind of left 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.880 the tar pits alone. But um, as far back as 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:20.160 eighteen seventy five, a guy named William Denton was the 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.600 first person to describe a fossil. Take him from the 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.200 bray of tarpet. Somebody gave him a saber tooth, tiger tooth, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.720 canine tooth and then inspired him. It did, and so 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:36.480 UM the Nascent Natural History Museum from Los Angeles contacted 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.720 the Hancock family and said, hey, why don't you let 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.360 us start tooling around there? And they let them starting 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:47.240 in nineteen o one. Uh, they were allowed to basically 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:52.760 do some kind of random, small, misguided excavation. Yeah, they 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.440 were only concerned about the big daddy bones. Well, that 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.680 came in the thirties. In the thirties when they started 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.760 like really digging the pit a thought. Nineteen thirteen is 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.200 when they started their first full scale You're right, I'm sorry. 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.840 They also did in the thirties too, well, from nineteen 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.120 thirteen till now, right, Okay, So in nineteen thirteen they 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.320 started digging pits around the Librea tar pits further pits, 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.280 uh nine six of them in total. Yeah, they had 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.360 to dig down to these. They weren't just big natural 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.440 pools of black tark, because people would have seen that 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.200 previously and be like, hey, what's up with all that stuff? Right, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.760 So they would dig down UM remove all of the bones, 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:31.960 and like you said, they were really only interested in 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.040 the big ones, so they kind of discarded and left 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.600 alone a lot of the bird bones and plant fossils 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.080 and all that stuff that's boring. And the other thing 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.320 they didn't do was catalog the bones together, so they 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.480 basically just threw them all into piles. And there's a 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:51.320 picture on the Page Museum's website of UM one of 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:57.640 the early lead excavators just surrounded by like boxes and 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.160 boxes of bones. I'm sure they were like, what do 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.320 we do with all this stuff? Yeah, they found something 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.919 like a million or so a million and a half bones, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.480 I think. Yeah, they dug ninety six pits in total, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.200 and uh, well, we'll talk about the new progress. But 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.639 before the new progress. They had close to four million fossils, 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.119 and that sounds like a lot, but they said you 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.320 only have to get like once every ten year or 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.439 some big animals. Well yeah, that was another thing too. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.960 They're like, well, that doesn't make any sense. In forty 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.280 thousand years, how could you have you know, four million bones? 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:33.480 When they were saying, well, yeah, if you do the math, 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.240 I think if you have thirty or ten animals stranded 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.879 every decade, it would account for it. Yeah, surprise, it 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.040 would more than that. Yeah, you know, because I mean 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.040 animals wander into tar pits. Yeah, they might also get 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.639 smart and avoid tar pits when when they see their 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:51.320 mommy go in and not coming out. I guess so, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.480 you know, because those little baby mastodonce didn't look like 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:56.640 they were going in. After they were out of there, 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.359 they went to the beach, they went to maccarth apart. 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.960 Score that's right, all right? So I said they dug 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.399 ninety six pits. Not all of them bore fruit. Uh, 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.960 quite a few of them did. And pitt number was 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:17.240 ninety one was noted for the bounty of fossils. It 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.800 provided it's always the fifth to last one. That isn't 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.160 that the same it's always the fifth to the last, 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.960 and they for about forty years they really concentrated on 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.960 Pitt ninety one. I don't think they're digging there and 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.359 right now, although they may have started again, and I 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.520 think they're hot and heavy on Project Well, should we 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:37.879 go ahead and go to Project three. We'll get to 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:39.879 Project twenty three in a second. Let's do a message 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:59.480 break real quick. Okay, okay, So let's talk about Project Yeah. 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.400 I think probably JE twenty three started in two thousand six, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:08.000 and that was basically a plan to continue digging and 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.359 find more fossils and take better care with the small guys, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.320 to get a more complete fossil record. And they call 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.840 it twenty three because they did a well, this whole 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.280 thing started because LACMA wanted to build a parking garage 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.919 and underground parking garage, yeah, which you can't do unless 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.359 you know, around that area because so volatile, without getting 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.240 some help from archaeologists. And so they ended up digging 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:35.080 twenty three just big chunks of land essentially in these crates. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:37.680 Have you ever seen you know, if you buy a 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.680 fully grown tree from a nursery, it comes in a 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.439 huge box. Huge wooden plants or have never seen him 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.160 like that. That's what they used. Yeah. Well, and much 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.560 larger even, and some of them capable of like close 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.600 to sixty tons of soil and tar and bones or 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:55.880 whatever else is in there. And that's why they called 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.480 the project because there's twenty three of them and this 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.760 was two dozen six of their You, much more sophisticated 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.840 techniques than they were using even in the sixties. Um, 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:10.800 when they were really hitting pit one hard. Um that 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:15.160 sounded so stupid, Please forgive me everyone, But they're using 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.760 sophisticated techniques. And they they had the um luxury of 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.280 coming at these deposits from the side or from underneath, 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.639 rather than having to go down through the tar pits 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.080 from above. Um. So they really scored a lot of 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.199 like just a trove of deposits of bones, including um, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:39.520 a wooly mammoth named zed them. Yeah, it was a 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.800 Columbian wooly mammoth. It was the most intact skeleton ever 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.879 found of a Columbian wooly mammoth. Yeah, and the wooly 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.520 mammoth you see um reconstructed at the Page Museum. Or 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:52.639 they were, like you said, they used to just put 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.879 all the bones together so those were bones made up 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.240 of all kinds of wooly mammothz is all zed or 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.120 eight percent of them is all dead. And they name 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.000 him Zed in honor of zero, the British way of 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.080 saying zero um. And the reason they named him zero 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.639 is because he represents basically like a new start and 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:17.760 understanding of not only that um, that species, but all 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:23.359 of the life around that era. Patient zero pretty much. Uh. 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.080 And the cool thing is, I mean, I like all 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.159 the campiness of the Page Museum, but one of the 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.879 really neat parts about it is they have what they 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.440 call the fish bowl. They have a the room where 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.359 they're doing this work is all glass, and you can 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.360 walk through and see all the skeletons that they put 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.840 together and all the funny old dated uh, holy mammoths 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.320 that are going. Yeah, you can pound on the glass 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.320 and go nerds scientists, we can do that. At the 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.159 very end of it, you can uh that they're in 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.399 they're brushing, and they have microscopes and all sorts of 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.520 neat little tools that scientists here. You want to wait 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:02.040 to the end anyway, so you can run off right 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.679 after you say that, and they're recording all this stuff 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.399 it's very detailed. Um, they're they're what they're doing is 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.280 they're getting a fossil record from that time like they 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:16.160 didn't have before because they were lazy in the nineteen on, right. 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:18.440 So one of the reasons why they're looking for this 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.560 fossil records because this is a particularly curious time period 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:28.240 that the Librea tar pits encapsulated. Literally, Um, they're humans 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:33.200 evolved the and well that's remember with the the early Americans. 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:36.880 The debate over that this is around that time, Um, 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:42.000 there was something called the late Pleistocene extinction. Um, there 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.120 were a lot You'll notice a lot of animals, large 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.520 animals that used to be in North America that aren't 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:53.119 any longer. There's no camels, there's no indigenous American horse 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.840 any longer, there's no American lion, and all of these animals, 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.760 these what are called megafauna, started dying off at about 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:03.160 the same time in North America, and scientists aren't really 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.760 sure why. And I think that's one of the reasons 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:08.359 they're so excited about zed is they're hoping he can 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:14.480 kind of tell them. There's three competing or um combination 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:20.360 hypotheses for what caused this extinction. Humans killed them. That's 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:24.320 one that humans either overhunted all of them or overhunted 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.600