I always though odd when they un-covered the La Brea Tar Pits in California..
The Page Museum is located at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles. Rancho La Brea is one of the world’s most famous fossil localities, recognized for having the largest and most diverse assemblage of extinct Ice Age plants and animals in the world.
Visitors can learn about Los Angeles as it was between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, when animals such as saber-toothed cats and mammoths roamed the Los Angeles Basin. Through windows at the Page Museum Laboratory, visitors can watch bones being cleaned and repaired. Outside the Museum, in Hancock Park, life-size replicas of several extinct mammals are featured.
Why in this part of the world?
Due to Seismic Activity?
It's interesting that a woman's skeleton was found there too. It's thought that she was thrown in some 9,000 years ago. She evidently had a bad abscess in her teeth and some speculate that she may have been seen as demon haunted or such. I've heard her described as the oldest homicide on LA’s books.
There's a heck of a lot of petroleum still under LA. The Bigs passed on much of it, but some of the leases have been snapped up by small local firms and they're still producing. Go down Pico & La Cienega some time and check out some of the odder looking buildings. One looks like a church with a steeple at first glance, until you see it moving around. It's actually part of a rig servicing about 6 wells!