Episode 67 - The La Brea Tar Pits

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Natural Sciences, Education, Earth Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2019

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How odd that one of the world’s richest and most famous fossil sites isn’t on a mountain or in a desert, but in the heart of one of the world’s largest cities. In this episode, we’ll dive into the history of the La Brea Tar Pits, explore how the site came to be, and give just a taste of the staggering diversity of fossil finds that fuel research into the latest chapters of the Ice Age. Also, we’ll explain why “tar pits” isn’t really a great name for them. In the news: a Cambrian Millennium Falcon, turtle bones, mammal ancestors, and a whale with a twist. Don’t miss our Bonus Episode: Voices of La Brea, including interviews with a bunch of the crew! Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:09:00Main discussion, Part 1: 00:32:30Main discussion, Part 2: 01:00:00Patron question: 01:33:30 Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures:http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ We're going to be at DragonCon 2019! The Common Descent Store is open! Get merch! http://zazzle.com/common_descent Follow and Support us on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcast/PodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduw The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Muscial Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, Will.
0:21.8	Hello, David.
0:23.3	Hello, listeners.
0:27.7	And welcome to episode 57, no, 67.
0:28.3	66.
0:28.9	67.
0:31.6	10 more than we previously thought.
0:33.3	Than I said, yeah, from 10 seconds ago.
0:35.1	Welcome to episode, welcome, welcome.
0:36.4	We're off to a great start.
0:56.8	This is episode 67 of the Common Descent Podcast. Today, we are going to highlight, once again, a particular fossil site, but not just any particular fossil site. The La Brea Tarpitz. Yes. One of the most famous fossil sites.
1:02.5	I'm sure someone out there could very convincingly argue that it is the most famous fossil site in the world.
1:07.7	It's the only one I can think of off the top of my head that I have seen in multiple movies.
1:08.1	Yep.
1:09.3	Shows up all the time.
1:19.4	The La Brea Tar P pits are an astonishingly rich collection of fossil material from the late Pleistocene toward the end of the Ice Age.
1:21.5	Not only are there tons of fossils in there, but they cover a range of ages that takes it right through the end of
1:30.2	the Pleistocene, which means not only is it a rich source of learning about individual animals
1:34.6	and plants and such, it's also a great place to look at how ecosystems changed over time.
1:41.6	Yes.
1:42.8	It's also a major tourist attraction, because unlike most fossil sites, it is in the middle
	...

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