La Brea Tar Pit Specimen - Authentic Pleistocene Asphalt Fossil Fragment

A La Brea Tar Pit Specimen From Ice Age Los Angeles

This La Brea Tar Pit specimen is made from mined La Brea fossil asphalt. The seep sections were gathered decades ago. As a resin-infused specimen, it is sealed in an acrylic jar.

Product Details

• SKU: 80-112-0192-201-40
• Specimen: Resin-infused La Brea asphalt fossil material
• Origin: La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, California
• Contents: Mined material containing coyotes, dung beetles, rabbits and a bald eagle
• Display: Acrylic jar in a classic riker case
• Includes: Information card that serves as the certificate of authenticity

A Trap That Preserved a World

Asphalt seeps at La Brea trapped and preserved plants and animals over thousands of years. Remains date back as far as 40,000 years, to the Late Pleistocene.

Petroleum rises through fractures in the ground. That sticky asphalt made a natural fossil trap.

What Came Out of the Ground

The pits are famous for saber-tooth cats, dire wolves, mammoths, mastodons, American lions and ancient camels. Scientific digs have run since 1906.

This resin-infused specimen holds smaller creatures from the same deposits. Add this Ice Age fossil to our Prehistoric Collection and Natural History Collection.

Display and Care

Keep the La Brea Tar Pit specimen away from heat. Asphalt and resin soften when warm.

About La Brea

The pits sit in the middle of Los Angeles, over an oil field. More than a million fossils have been recovered. A La Brea asphalt fossil like this is a piece of that urban Ice Age.

For More Reading from the Web

• Read about the Ice Age fossils beneath Los Angeles. Beneath Los Angeles Lies an Ice Age Time Capsule - City of Los Angeles
• Read the supplier's page on this specimen. La Brea Tar Pit Riker Box Specimens - Mini Museum