TAR PIT Definition & Meaning

tar pit

An accumulation of natural tar or asphalt at the Earth's surface, especially one that traps animals and preserves their hard parts. Tar pits form when petroleum in subterranean petroleum-bearing rocks oozes up to the surface. As it rises, the petroleum loses its volatile components, forming a thick tar or asphalt deposit.

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Our oldest known graveyard is, of course, the La Brea tar pits.

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But the asphalt of a tar pit is rich in very old carbon, which is largely devoid of carbon-14.

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The nature of the tar pits makes it easy to determine which animals died there, but harder to know when they died.

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The tar pits are fenced off, but nothing discourage birds from landing on the goo.

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A morning at Boy Scout camp in the forests of northern New Jersey is embedded in my memory, fixed like a bone in the tar pits.

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