Question Sheet: South America’s sticky tar pits

SCIENCE

Before reading:

1. What is asphalt and how does it form?
2. What is a fossil?
3. Do you know what has been pulled out of Los Angeles’ La Brea tar pits?
4. How do you think those animals got in there?

During reading:

1. Why are scientists interested in what has been trapped by the South American

   tar pits?

2. What are menes and how do they form?
3. How old are some of the most ancient critters trapped in the South American

   asphalt deposits?

4. Some tar pits lie near Panama. Why does their geographic location

   particularly interest scientists? (Hint: Picture the placement of the Panama

   Canal.)

5. Describe the types of environments that had existed prior to the development

   of a tar pit at some of these South American sites.

6. By how many years do these pits extend the fossil record in South

   America?

7. How do the fossils in these pits differ from the fossils people usually find

   on land, such as of a dinosaur?

After Reading:

1. Why do scientists care about what animals roamed Earth thousands or even

   millions of years ago?

2. Explain why you would like to observe scientists extracting fossils from one

   of these tar pits — or why you wouldn’t. Pick an answer that doesn’t involve:

   “Because it’s yucky!”

3. What might the fossils suggest about evolution and where particular families

   of species come from?

SOCIAL STUDIES

1. Like dinosaur fossils, many of the remnants being pulled out of tar pits

   point to the existence of animals that no longer roam our planet. Many resemble

   existing types of animals. What argument for evolution, if any, can you make by

   contrasting the animals trapped in tarry asphalt versus species alive today?

2. Would the asphalt in tar pits make a good fuel? Why or why not?
3. Study the countries where South American tar pits occur. What about them

   might help explain why these fossil storage sites went unexplored for so long?

4. Asphalt, the tarry material in these pits, is also used in road building.

   Venezuela has many natural asphalt deposits. Indeed, the United States imports

   much of its asphalt from there. But Venezuela’s government has recently

   threatened to cut off supplies of asphalt to the United States. If that

   happened, what effects do you think this could have on your

   community?

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. Write a small poem about what gets trapped by or pulled out of tar pits.
2. Write three paragraphs explaining what you’d do if you stumbled across one

   of these tar pits while walking through a woods, and what you think might be in

   it.