Major Cache of Fossils Unearthed In Los Angeles 215
aedmunde sends along news from the LA Times: "A nearly intact mammoth, dubbed Zed, is among the remarkable discoveries near the La Brea Tar Pits. It's the largest known deposit of Pleistocene ice age fossils... in what might seem to be the unlikeliest of places — under an old May Co. parking lot in L.A.'s tony Miracle Mile shopping district. ...huge chunks of soil from the site have been removed intact and now sit in large wooden crates on the back lot... The 23 crates range... from the size of a desk to that of a small delivery truck... There were, in fact, 16 separate deposits on the site, an amount that, by her estimate, would have taken 20 years to excavate conventionally. ... Carefully identifying the edges of each deposit, her team dug trenches around them and underneath, isolating the deposits on dirt pedestals. After wrapping heavy plastic around the deposits, workers built wooden crates similar to tree boxes and lifted them out individually with a heavy crane. The biggest one weighed 123,000 pounds."
Not politically correct. (Score:5, Funny)
They are called, "old people", and yes, there are a lot of them in L.A.
Wow (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not politically correct. (Score:2, Funny)
Not any more. Anybody in Los Angeles that looks to old is sent to the "Valley" where they're happier and the rest of the city doesn't have to look at them, or risk them being seen on TV.
Who's Zed? (Score:5, Funny)
Zed's dead baby, zed's dead.
Re:Not politically correct. (Score:3, Funny)
I live in the Valley.....*sob*
Not unlikely at all (Score:5, Funny)
The fossils were found under a parking lot.
Obvious really - Thag and his wife Urga came back from the show to find their trusty mammoth leg-clamped for over-parking. They couldn't afford the unclamping fee, so had to walk home. The rest is history.
Re:Not politically correct. (Score:4, Funny)
Then we're going to have to ask you to turn in your webcam.
Re:Not politically correct. (Score:5, Funny)
doh! (Score:5, Funny)
> "in what might seem to be the unlikeliest of places..."
Hey, Marge! I found fossils in a known tar pit - who would have guessed.....!!
ObFuturama (Score:2, Funny)
(Leela and Fry are in the Planet Express ship, trapped deep in the La Brea tar pits! Seeking any means of escape from Certain Doom, Leela scans the endless depths of their petroleum prison...)
[Leela looks at a scanner.]
LEELA
It's some kind of hollow tube, devoid
of human life. The Los Angeles subway!
We can blast our way in and escape!
Confusing (Score:5, Funny)
For those of you who prefer more conventional measurement units, that's between 0.35 and 2.5 volkswagens.
Fossils in LA: Susan Saradon??? (Score:0, Funny)
Was Susan Saradon among those fossils unearthed?
How about her son, Tim Robbins?
Re:Multiple redundancy (Score:2, Funny)
Just in case anybody cares, "La Brea" is Spanish for "the Tar," so "The La Brea Tar Pits" translates into "The The Tar Tar Pits."
Don't you mean The Tar the Tar Pits?
Re:Multiple redundancy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Multiple redundancy (Score:2, Funny)
Tar Tar Pits. He's going to be a character in the Clone Wars series.
Search your feelings! You KNOW it to be true!
TAR PITS! (Score:3, Funny)
(Pico and Sepulveda...)
(Pico and Sepulveda...)
Doheney...
Cahuenga...
La Brea...
TAR PITS! [youtube.com]
old dead things (Score:3, Funny)
ziiing!
For those asking for metric... (Score:5, Funny)
This story is tagged "metricplease", but they didn't have the metric system in the mesozoic era. Sheesh.
Re:Multiple redundancy (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Confusing (Score:5, Funny)
I am so sick of every thread turning into some goddamn crusade for the metric system.
Look, people, this was in the US, so we're simply going to use the imperial system (.08 to 0.6 Chrysler Imperials).
Re:123,000 pounds in modern money? (Score:3, Funny)
Aircraft carriers are measured in ounces.
Re:Flintstone (Score:4, Funny)
I've only ever been able to manage a partial mammoth.
Sorry, I'll get my skins.
Re:Confusing (Score:4, Funny)
I am so sick of every thread turning into some goddamn crusade for the metric system.
Look, people, this was in the US, so we're simply going to use the imperial system (.08 to 0.6 Chrysler Imperials).
My car gets 40 rods to the hog's head and that's the way I like it.
Re:For those asking for metric... (Score:5, Funny)
This story is tagged "metricplease", but they didn't have the metric system in the mesozoic era. Sheesh.
They almost did!
In SE Asia they found a fossilized homo erectus, and in its hand it was holding a stone rod which was divided by carved grooves into ten equal sections, which were each then subdivided by smaller grooves into ten sections. Embedded in the specimen's skull was another rod, which was divided into twelve sections, with sixteen subdivisions.
Thus we have evidence of the oldest known metric vs imperial argument, and its resolution. While anthropologists do not know the identity of the assailant who doomed the entire pleistocene to imperial measurements, it is assumed they were an early form of Yankee.
10000 years from now (Score:4, Funny)
Future archaeologists are going to be confused when they find all these dinosaurs buried in Hollywood. I predict that museums by then will have huge wax models of Will Smith riding a triceratops.
Award Winner (Score:2, Funny)
Re:DUH (Score:2, Funny)
I just woke up from a dirt nap to find myself dangling in the air from a crane!
What would only make this intolerable to my soul, would be to have steel rods rammed into me to prop me upright for all eternity.