Episode 67 - The La Brea Tar Pits

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: 00:00:00 News: 00:09:00 Main discussion, Part 1: 00:32:30 Main discussion, Part 2: 01:00:00 Patron 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/CommonDescentPC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcast/ PodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2 YouTube: 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 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/