Wandering Environmentalist: Tar "Pits"

Hi All,

We were looking for a campground on a beach, and stumbled onto Carpinteria State Beach and Tarpit State Park on the California Coast. We showed up with no reservation, and heard the happiest words campers can ever hear, which are: "yes, we have space." Well, this may have been the oddest setup campground we've camped at.

The spaces are all on pavement, two parking spaces wide by one parking space deep. You have to unhitch your camper, and then park your tow vehicle beside it. We were in the third row from the beach next to the dumpsters, and could see and hear the beach from the camper. It was a little trashy, but a few minutes with a trash bag made a decent home for the night. We took the dogs and went exploring...

The coastline is breath taking...

Here, Mrs. Dr. V looks for precious stones (agates) on the beach, and instead finds odd rocks with holes in them...

Here, you can see the little critter that is able to burrow holes in the rock...I believe it is a piddock mollusc. She found a cool one that is about the right size to make a pendant for a necklace. There were lots of these.

Meanwhile, out to sea you could see oil rigs - I guess I never realized just how close to the coast the oil rigs are. I counted eight of them. I think that's Catalina Island in the background.

This boat was ferrying people and supplies to and from the rigs.

Then, it got interesting. Apparently, the same geology that makes the area oil-rich, has created a huge tar layer, and the beach is what's known as a Tar Pit. You're probably familiar with its more famous cousin, the La Brea Tar Pit, where a lot of fossils have been discovered. Turns out, there are only five know sites in the world that are Tar Pits. Three are in California, and two in other countries. I would tell you which, but the internet connection here is so slow, I can't search that :-(

Here's what we saw:

Tar squishing out of a crack...

Wet tar in a creek. The shiny stuff isn't water, it's wet tar. When you look at the internet reviews for the campground, people recommend you bring mineral spirits to get the tar off (nail polish remover works, too).

This is hard tar, with a pretty pattern on it. Looks like something you'd see in the parking lot.

Cobbles in tar, with tar splattered on them. If you didn't know it was natural, you'd be really angry that someone dumped this tar out here at the beach.

Mrs. Dr. V shows how wet and sticky the tar is. It was just like what you'd get in a bucket to patch a roof. Apparently, earlier folks mined the tar and used it in the asphalt the roads were made from. We both got tar on us. Mrs. Dr. V used nail polish remover to get her's off.