tar pit

A tar pit, or more accurately known as an asphalt pit, is a geological occurrence where subterranean bitumen leaks to the surface, creating a large puddle, pit, or lake of asphalt.

Known tar pits

LaBrea Tar Pits

There are only a few known asphalt lakes worldwide:

• Pitch Lake at La Brea, Trinidad and Tobago
• La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles
• McKittrick, California near Bakersfield
• Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, California
• Lake Bermudez in Venezuela

There are other fossil-bearing asphalt deposits in Texas, Peru, Trinidad, Iran, Russia and Poland.

For other rich deposits, fossilized where they occurred, see Lagerstätten. Tar pits are the resting places of many fossils.

Paleontological significance

Animals are sometimes unable to escape from the asphalt if they fall in and this makes these pits excellent locations to excavate bones of prehistoric animals. La Brea Tar Pits have a museum built around the fossilized remains of mammals and birds found in such a tar pit.

See also

• Petroleum seep

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