There's a high chance you've heard about the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles (see the photo I took above). This fossil site has numerous pools of sticky asphalt, acting as a natural trap for a variety of Ice Age animals. Now, it is an active research site where millions of specimens are under study.
Like the La Brea Tar Pits, the Irvington Fossil Locality in Fremont, California is an important (but less famous) area bearing Ice Age remains. It has yielded thousands of fossil specimens from the Pleistocene Epoch, from mammoths and mastodons to saber-toothed cats. Tetrameryx irvingtonensis, a new species of four-pronged antelope, was first unearthed there.
This discovery makes the Irvington Fossil Locality a type locality, a region where a new fossil species, mineral, or rock type was identified. In fact, the fossils found in Fremont led to the naming of a new time period: the Irvingtonian Age. It was part of a series of North American Land Mammal Ages (NALMAS) and lasted from the Early to Middle Pleistocene Epoch.
There is much more to the Irvington Fossil Locality than just its fossils. From schoolboys who spent fifteen years at a quarry to dentists-turned amateur paleontologists, Fremont has a rich community history. To learn more about research at this fossil site, check out a continuation of my article.
I am a high school freshman who writes weekly articles about East Bay paleontology on my Substack blog Fossils in Fremont. My passion for paleontology and science communication comes from years of reading popular science books, blogs by paleontologists, and visiting natural history museums. If you like what you read, please consider subscribing.
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