Microfossils

Exhibitions

Scanning Electron Microscope Lab

See how big discoveries can come from the tiniest things in the Gem and Mineral Hall.

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Events

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Museum Educator leading visitors along a path with big cat paw prints

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

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daily

2:00 pm

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

Learn more

daily

2:00 pm

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

Learn more

daily

2:00 pm

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

Learn more

daily

2:00 pm

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

Learn more

daily

2:00 pm

Stories

Solving a Juniper Seed Mystery at La Brea Tar Pits

How identifying a mysterious fossil seed reveals Ice Age climate change

A paleoart rendition of Eupachydiscus sp. by Cullen Townsend.

Collections Staff Help Ammonites Come Out of Their Shells

Uncovering how digitization and collections management made a groundbreaking extinction study come to life

Launch pad for the Ariane 6 for Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana

Spaceport Fossils from French Guiana

How one small step for a spaceport in French Guiana led to a giant leap for Pleistocene fossils

Bloomberg Connects Header Image depicting the screen of a guide user

Digital Guide to La Brea Tar Pits

Explore La Brea Tar Pits—including the new Mark Dion exhibit Excavations—as well as over 160 international museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and cultural spaces on our Bloomberg Connects free digital guide.

Extinction and Survival at La Brea Tar Pits

Groundbreaking new research from La Brea Tar Pits curators finds that in California, 13,000 years ago, huge Ice Age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change.

Playing With Fire: Extinction and Survival at La Brea Tar Pits

In California, 13,000 years ago, huge Ice Age mammals that had roamed the landscape for many millennia, suddenly ceased to exist. The cause? Humans, catastrophic fires, and an ecosystem made vulnerable by climate change.

Discover more

A researcher in a white lab coat returns a fossil to a shelf in a row of compact shelving

Samuel Oschin Global Center
for Ice Age Research

A New Scientific Research Hub

L.A. on Wheels Scavenger Hunt

Go on a Museum scavenger hunt to explore how L.A. turns transportation into a celebration of creativity and community!

NHMLAC Discovery Talk: L.A.'s Ice Age Animals

Join Connie Clark, La Brea Tar Pits Preparator, as she explores the La Brea Tar Pits Museum Fossil Lab’s work to improve fossil preparation practices, recent finds in Project 23, and why animals found around L.A. today might be rarer in the Tar Pits fossil record.

NHMLAC Discovery Talk with Dr. Jorge Velez-Juarbe

Join Dr. Jorge Velez-Juarbe as he explores the migration of vertebrate fauna to the Caribbean Islands and the effects of climate change on his field work.

Video: Happy Hour with Dr. Regan Dunn

News & Press

Press Release | LBTP

La Brea Tar Pits to Launch the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research as a Highlight of Its Major Campus Transformation

A landmark gift from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation advances the complete reimagining of one of Los Angeles’s most iconic scientific, cultural, and community sites

New renderings from WEISS/MANFREDI reveal updated plans to transform the museum and park on Wilshire Blvd

Effort Connects More Than a Billion Objects in Scientific Collections Across 73 Museums in 28 Countries

Findings Shared in New Paper Published in Science Magazine on March 23, 2023