A massive haul of fossils has been unearthed from a car park near Los Angeles by the mysteriously named Project 23.

These fossils have been excavated from the famous the La Brea Tar Pits. The Page Museum, which oversees pit research, says the find is “so enormous that it could potentially rewrite the scientific account” of the area. ‘Project 23’ has so far produced over 700 specimens, including horse, bison, coyotes, dire wolves, and saber-toothed cats (press release).

As these are from the last ice age around 40,000 – 10,000 years ago, they are obviously not really a ‘Jurassic Car Park’. That headline was irresistible though.

The mysterious moniker comes from the fact that these animals were all carted out of the car park in 23 giant crates, weighing up to 56 tonnes.

The LA Times, which has a huge story on the find, says:

Most paleontologists spend days to weeks carefully sifting through the soil at the site of a dig. In this case, however, huge chunks of soil from the site have been removed intact and now sit in large wooden crates on the museum’s back lot. The 23 crates — ranging in size from that of a desk to that of a small delivery truck — are responsible for the excavation’s informal name, Project 23.

…

“We designed a crate so that we could take out the entire deposit without disturbing it so that, at a later date, you could do a proper excavation as you would if it were still in the ground,” said [project overseer Robin Turner, of ArchaeoPaleo Resource Management].

In another find, not related to Project 23, a nearly intact mammoth, christened Zed, was unearthed nearby.

“The name signifies the beginning of a new era of research and discovery. Zed is a symbol of the potential of Project 23 to revolutionize our knowledge about this area,” says John Harris, chief curator of the Page Museum.

You can keep up with Project 23 on the Excavatrix blog, via which comes this video of researchers pulling a North American Lion skull out of the tar. It is also well worth checking out their photo site.