The Los Angeles River is actually 51 miles of concrete. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began lining the waterway in the 1930s to prevent flooding.
The river is going to be made more like it used to be. Scientists are trying to transform a rail yard into a place where life can thrive again and where people can go and enjoy nature.
Lewis MacAdams, a poet and activist for bringing nature back to the L.A. River, said that it was difficult to see something that wasn't there. He shared that idea with another person who works on the river.
How do you make the invisible visible when so much of the life used to be there? Studying organisms that have died in the past 60,000 years is part of the answer.
The preservation and enhancement of natural landscapes are influenced by the Earth's fossil record. It is part of a growing field that aims to use dead and buried life to help scientists.
About eight miles west of the L.A. River lies the La Brea Tar Pits, natural pits of pitch black tar that have trapped and killed things that lived in Southern California.
Fossils found in the tar include everything from saber-tooth cats to giant ground sloths.
The pits are much different from the river. They give us a glimpse into the life that once flourished in the area.
A recent graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, she studies fossil plants at the tar pits. She explained during a tour of the site that fossils can show how past life was affected by climate change. It is critical information for work along the river in our age of human driven climate change.
There are different windows of different habitats, said Dr. George as she crouched over the bones of a dire wolf. They can see how they are responding to climate.
The person is from Southern California. The plant doesn't fare well in a warming world.
Juniper is sensitive to periods of warming. juniper is having a huge die-off in the Southwest and we look at those intervals that are hottest.
There is a different story to the fossil record of oak trees.
It has persisted across a wide range of environmental changes. Repeated, short-term warming and cooling events have been faced by it.
California State Parks and The Nature Conservancy are working to improve the Bowtie parcel. As the Bowtie work progresses, she can use it to figure out which plants to turn to.
Plants like oaks can be used to create habitats for birds.
We are going to work with the people at La Brea to see if there is any overlap between the two.
Fossils can change how we think about nature.
Mychajliw said that sometimes people just want to know if the species is native or not. The fossil record can be helpful with that.
According to Dr. Mychajliw, coyotes are seen as a nuisance.
There are fossils of coyotes in the tar pits.
It may change how you interact with the animal if you see it as an outsider. She said that it was important for urban dwellers in Los Angeles to know what their landscape looked like over the years.
Fossil data is used by paleobiologists around the world to add ancient perspectives to modern problems.
The Colorado River Delta in Mexico used to be a place where the river emptied into the ocean before being dammed. The case for briefly letting the river flow into the delta was made because of the information.
The study of shark scales, which reveal how the cartilaginous fish have responded to human intervention over time, is being used to inform shark protection in Panama.
There is a bust of Mr. MacAdams at an entrance to a multiuse path across the L.A. river.
The river used to be called a flood control channel. She explained that Mr. MacAdams would say "river" whenever he heard "flood control channel" at the LA Department of Public Works meetings.
The word regained its value.
The narrative surrounding the river was changed by Mr. MacAdams. When Mr. MacAdams passed away, Ms. Superfisky took on the task.
He told her that they were the next wave of the movement.
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