La Brea Tar Pits
Crude oil still seeps to the surface here — the same sticky trap that killed large mammals and then killed the predators that came to eat them.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Los Angeles offline.
Crude oil rising along the 6th Street Fault reaches the surface and becomes asphalt, which has been preserving bones for at least 38,000 years. Animals wandered into water-covered pools, got stuck, and died; predators followed to feed on them and got stuck too — what researchers call a "predator trap." This is an active paleontological dig in the middle of the city, not a reconstruction. The George C. Page Museum, on-site, displays the finds.
What to look for
- Bones turned dark-brown or black where asphalt soaked in over millennia
- Hardened asphalt mounds scattered across Hancock Park — the surface expression of oil still rising from below
- Microfossil cases in the George C. Page Museum: insects, pollen grains, and seeds pulled from the same deposits as the large mammals
The George C. Page Museum closes July 7, 2026 for a two-year renovation — visit the outdoor pits any time, but check ahead if you want the museum.
La Brea Tar Pits is one of 33 sights worth the detour in Los Angeles, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Los Angeles pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Los Angeles
- Hollywood Walk of Fame2,850 names pressed into pink terrazzo underfoot — actors, inventors, fictional characters, all at six-foot intervals for 1.3 miles.
- Dolby TheatreThe red carpet runs up these stairs every awards season — where Hollywood officially crowns its year.
- SoFi StadiumA million-square-foot canopy embedded with 27,000 LED pucks bright enough to be seen from planes descending into LAX.
- Hollywood SignA 1923 real-estate billboard that refused to come down — and ended up owning the word "Hollywood" itself.
- U.S. Bank TowerLA sold the sky above a fire-gutted library to fund its own rebuilding — and got its second-tallest tower in the bargain.
- Rose BowlA century-old sunken oval where the 1994 World Cup Final was settled — and the 2028 Olympics will return to do it again.