Special Field Trip! La Brea Tar Pits

Sponsored by the Port of Umatilla

As a special treat and thanks to the sponsorship of the Port of Umatilla, we’re organizing a trip to La Brea Tar Pits! Guests will first enjoy the Titans of the Ice Age — a 3D adventure film, narrated by Christopher Plummer, that takes guests on a tour of an icy world with magnificent saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, giant sloths and, of course, iconic mammoths that lived 10,000 years before modern civilization.

Following the roughly 20-minute film, guests will take a self-guided tour of the tar pits and excavation site — the only actively excavated Ice Age fossil site found in an urban location in the world! More than 100 excavations have been made at the Tar Pits since the early 1900s, and most of the fossils discovered here are housed in the museum at La Brea Tar Pits, at the center of the Tar Pits! The discoveries range in size from huge, extinct mammoths and sloths to “microfossils,” or tiny remains of plants and animals that give us clues about how ancient ecosystems and climates changed.

All conference attendees are welcome (and, again thanks to the sponsorship of the Port of Umatilla, is free) but must pre-register by July 21, 2023.