The Carpinteria California Tar Pits, 2. Royalty-Free Stock Photo

There are five natural tar pit lakes in the world, three in the Southern California area. The tar, most likely from the Pleistocene epoch, which was about 2,588,000 - 11,700 years ago, produced a substance the local Chumash people knew to use as a sealant for their canoes, and as asphalt. Hundred of animal and birds had also been trapped in the, preserved and now saved in the local, Carpinteria Valley Museum of History.