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Take a Video Journey Into Metro's Fossil-Filled Fairfax Pit

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There's yet another advantage to extending the Purple Line subway to Westwood, aside from that speedier, greener commute: an excuse to dig up 300,000-year-old fossils. Metro is using a huge "exploratory shaft" near the future Wilshire/Fairfax station to study the ground conditions 75 feet below the surface—the depth of their subway stations and tunnels—as well as the rich geologic history underneath the La Brea Tar Pits. In this new Metro video (via LAist), contractors, Metro staffers, and officials at the Page Museum—which is working with Metro on the fossil recovery—discuss their findings, which include mussels, snails, clams, and other invertebrates that indicate much of what is currently coastal southern California was under chilly water just a few million years ago.


· Video: Metro Found Some Sweet Fossils While Digging Near La Brea Tar Pits [LAist]
· Peer Into the Purple Line's Fossil-Filled Exploratory Shaft [Curbed LA]

La Brea Tar Pits

5801 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036