Methane Gas

  Los Angeles, California
Saturday, July 19, 2008

Have you ever wondered where methane gas comes from - other than beans that is?  You are not alone. I never wondered or cared either.  We did learn that one place it comes from is the ground.  It bubbles up through the tar in the La Brea Tar Pits.  Here is a video Sarah made of the bubbling tar.

                                                                 
                                                               
The La Brea Tar Pits is a neat place as long as you are not an animal from 10,000+ years ago stuck in the muck.  They would have a different take on it I am sure.  This would not be my first choice to be a paleontologist if I were one.  The information you would gain is excellent.  However, you would be perpetually sticky.  They work in tar everyday.  No thanks.  

                                                                  

For some reason I had the impression La Brea was located on the out-skirts of the city.  That was dumb.  There are no out-skirts to this city.  It is one giant sprawling suburb, so nothing is on the out-skirts.  La Brea is on Wilshire Drive.  I always associated Wilshire Drive with a Beverly Hills type environment.  Wilshire Drive runs all the way across the city.  One of the traffic things they do better  here is to not change the name of  a street every time you cross into another suburb.  Virginia could learn a valuable lesson here.  

                                                                 
Time for a Spanish lesson:  brea means tar in Spanish.  That means the name of the place is The Tar tar pits.  I thought that was funny.
                                                               
I have included a bunch of pictures and the web site to La Brea.  Happy surfing.