Large Group Of Ice Age Fossils Found During Parking Lot Excavation

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 18: La Brea Tar Pits lab supervisor Shelly Cox stands near the teeth and lower jaw of a nearly intact Columbian mammoth, dubbed Zed, found in the largest known deposit of Pleistocene ice age fossils, under the parking lot of an old May Co. store near the La Brea tar pits in the Miracle Mile shopping district, February 18, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. Researchers from the George C. Page Museum removed 23 crates of intact tar and sand asphalt containing thousands of 10,000 to 40,000 year old fossils from the site informally dubbed Project 23. The discovery is expected to double the size of the museum's collection of fossils from the era, already the largest in the world, as specimens are cleaned and sorted over the coming years. Most of the large animal remains being found in the early stages of excavation, including mammoths, saber-toothed cats, North American lions, dire wolves and giant ground sloths died when they wandered into marshy pools or lakes of sticky tar that oozed up from massive underground oil fields. But researchers are extremely excited to also find many smaller fossils including fish, turtles, clams, rodents, millipedes, trees and mats of oak leaves, the kind of important material that was lost by earlier excavators of tar pits focusing on the search for large bones. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)