More than 100 tar pits were located within the 23 acres of Hancock Park. However, Pit 91 was the site of the museum's annual excavation for nearly 40 years.  Work at Pit 91 has been temporarily suspended while we focus on a huge amount of fossils uncovered during recent construction work in Hancock Park.

- Pit 91 measures 28' x 28' and approximately 14 feet deep. Excavation takes place in 3' square grids. After fossils are excavated, they are taken to the Paleontology Laboratory at the Page Museum, where they are carefully cleaned, identified, labeled, catalogued and placed into storage. They are then available for research by professionals and students from around the world.

- The bubbles seen in the Lake Pit outside the Page Museum, and in Pit 91, are composed of methane gas - commonly called natural gas. This gas is colorless and odorless, the same substance that is used in gas-burning home appliances (gas companies add an odor for safety reasons). Methane is a by-product created when plant and animal remains decompose to form crude oil. People interested in learning first-hand what it's like to be a paleontologist can volunteer at the Museum's fossil laboratory.   For more information on becoming a laboratory volunteer at the Page Museum, the public can call (323) 857-6300 ext 120.

La Brea Tar Pits:

- Rancho La Brea, frequently referred to as the "Tar Pits" is one of the richest and most famous asphalt deposits of Ice Age fossils in the world. Since 1908, more than one million fossil bones dating 10,000 to 40,0000 years old have been recovered and are housed at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. Over 650 species of plants and animals have been identified and represent the latest part of the Pleistocene Epoch.

- The earliest written mention of the asphalt deposits at Rancho La Brea was in the diary of Juan Crespi, a Franciscan friar with the expedition of Gaspar de Portola (the first Spanish Governor of the Californias) in 1769. Professor William Denton of the Boston Society of Natural History wrote the first scientific description of the fossils in 1875. Evidence indicates that there was extensive prehistoric use and trade of asphalt by Native Americans.

- Asphalt is the lowest grade of crude oil. Tar is a by-product of destructive distillation of woody materials, such as coal or peat. A large petroleum reservoir called the Salt Lake Oil Field is located below the surface north of Hancock Park. The oil was formed from marine plankton deposited in an ocean basin during the Miocene Epoch (5 - 25 million years ago). Time and pressure converted this material into oil - and for about 40,000 years, this petroleum has been seeping to the surface around Hancock Park.

- The land onto which the asphalt seeps was part of a 4,400 acre Mexican land grant called Rancho La Brea ("the tar ranch") that was given to Antonio Jose Rocha in 1828. Captain George Allan Hancock inherited part of the rancho from his father, Major Henry Hancock in 1913. A businessman, railroad man, rancher, marine scientist and patron of the arts, G. Allan Hancock donated the 23 acres of Hancock Park to Los Angeles County in 1924 to preserve and exhibit the fossils exhumed from Rancho La Brea.

- The most common animal fossils that have been excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits are dire wolves (more than 3,000 found) and California's official state fossil, the saber-toothed cat (more than 2,000 found). Other fossils include mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, camel, short-faced bears, horses, bison and birds. Since Page Museum paleontologists and volunteers began excavating Pit 91 in 1915, more than 250,000 fossils have been recovered. Over 650 different species of animals and plants have been recovered from the tar pits. Of these, most of the fossil plants, insects, snails and small mammals have come from Pit 91.

- Early excavators focused on the recovery of large mammals. Today, Page Museum staff also collect the sediment (matrix) around the fossils to learn about the microfossils - seeds and pollen, insects and mollusks, fish, amphibians and small birds and rodents - that provide paleontologists with detailed information about the habitats and climate present in Los Angeles during the waning phases of the last Ice Age.

- Fossils have been recovered from other asphaltic sites in California - but not in the vast quantity or diversity seen at Rancho La Brea. The sites include Maricopa and McKittrick in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley.