BogDog wrote:When you really get down to the truth, tar is not like quicksand. She would have been stuck on the surface a few to several inches deep. Animals supposedly starved or died of thirst. They did not drown in tar as it was just too thick. Over time, maybe months or even years their remains sank and were buried.
Tar pits come in a range of depths and thicknesses, and stickiness. Some are shallow and act like giant flypaper and others are deeper and act like both flypaper and, as mentioned, can take forever to sink under when very thick. For those, the victims die of exposure, starvation, dehydration, or predation (and the predators may become stuck too and become victims). But others are softer, and
DO act like quicksand in terms of visibly sinking! Of course, with the deep stuff, there is no buoyancy!
BogDog wrote:We were led to believe though various forms of media that the big pit was filled with sticky, mucky tar. But when you see it at La Brea with the mammoth statues you are seeing an excavated hole filled with rain water and oil seeping in and various types of dust and debris on the surface, not a tar pit.
This is what the site actually looked like before they dug the pit seeking fossils. No pools of goo here.:
It's not a pit of thick sticky goo as most people believe and as shown in the TV episode. That's why people can literally don protective suits and dive in there, and have too.
LAPD Officer Dives into La Brea Tar Pit for Murder Case
An LAPD officer dived into California tar pits in search for clues to a murder.
ByABC News
June 7, 2013, 11:23 AM
Murder Case Heads to California's La Brea Tar PitsA Los Angeles police officer dives in murky sludge for evidence in a 2011 killing.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/murder- ... s-19347780LAPD Sgt. David Mascarenas spent an hour Thursday in the murky pit filled with methane and hydrogen sulfate-filled water and was submerged as deeply as 17 feet, officials said.
"This is the first time someone has been submered in the pits, in my recent memory," said Lauren Girard, manager of Guest Relations at the Page Museum, which oversees the La Brea Tar Pits.
"People aren't usually inclined to drop things into the pits because they are so hard to get to. It's not something that's common. Mostly we find trash that has been blown by the wind or small animals," Girard said.
Mascarenas' dive, however, was successful.
"We did find evidence pertaining to the police investigation," he told ABC News affiliate KABC. "We believe it was there the entire time."
The LAPD would not tell ABC News the details of the 2011 case or what they found.
While the tar pits are not poisonous, Mascarenas did take proper precaution to prevent methane inhalation.
"I was wearing what is called a hazmat dry suit that is supposed to protect you against chemicals and any contaminated water," he told KABC.
I remember that story. While under the water, he could see how the tar rose up from the bottom in bloblike columns with gaseous interiors. When one was poked, gas was released, which made him feel sick. While down there, he had to be careful not to touch any of the tar, because when he accidentally did, he almost got stuck, but managed to get free.
Here is a YouTube video of a guy daring to go for a swim on an innertube in the tar pit, which is actually water with a small patch of floating tar, which he kept away from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji4bUEC1hH4&t=1774s