Fossil-Filled Park Points Back to Prehistory

If residents of northern Buena Park need more than the usual amount of convincing that living in their neighborhood today is better than living there, say, 60,000 years ago, the interpretive center at Ralph B. Clark Regional Park can provide them with a few real stunners.

How about a giant ground sloth roughly the size of Lyle Alzado? Or a black bear or a saber-toothed cat or a huge imperial mammoth? One little stampede and there goes the neighborhood.

Fortunately the specimens on display at the center won’t be doing much of that. They--or rather what’s left of them--were dug out of the fossil-filled strata in and around the park, assembled into cohesive skeletons and arranged in what is probably the most comprehensive display of prehistoric animal remains in the county.

The park’s interpretive center, which opened 4 months ago, is a museum dedicated to the display the fossilized remains found in or near the base of the adjacent Coyote Hills, dug up mostly by groups of volunteers supervised by paleontologists. The mammal fossils date back nearly 70,000 years, said park ranger and paleontologist Steven Conkling; other fossils of sea life found at the site are up to 1.4 million years old.

These bones, shells or petrified or fossilized formations are often put on display in the center soon after they are lifted from the earth, he said, although it usually takes more time--and luck--to assemble the entire framework of the more complex skeletons.

The center, however, is not all bones. The fossil displays are intermingled with several models and visual presentations to show the evolution of the area. These supporting exhibits include satellite photos of the area, a lighted graphic that compares the process of continental drift to the crashing together of two automobiles, a “stream table” that demonstrates erosion and land movement and silhouettes of ancient animals, from quail to an imperial mammoth, painted in their actual size on one wall.

The centerpiece of the large room is a tall column from which are suspended several long strips of fabric that can be raised and lowered by rope pulleys. Each strip is divided into sections representing different ages and the lengths of time they occupied in the history of Earth. The strips can be raised and lowered to help illustrate the relations of the different ages.

On one strip, for instance, the age of man on earth is represented by a tiny section near the ceiling, while the time of mammals is depicted by a much longer section on the same strip.

The stars of the animal show are complete skeletons of a young black bear, a horse, a giant ground sloth and what Conkling says is “to my knowledge the only correctly mounted saber-toothed cat in the world.”

Thanks to recent discoveries, he said, the center staff arranged the paws of the cat’s skeleton to accurately reflect variation in the cat’s individual claws, something not previously done by paleontologists.

Apart from being “one place that isn’t covered with concrete,” Conkling said the area lends itself to bountiful digs because during prehistory there was a beach nearby, as well as high ground to provide mammals with fresh water. Consequently, he said, many fossils and artifacts eventually washed down from Coyote Hills, into the lowland that is now Clark Park.

The center is run by Conkling and one other employee, but most of the work at the digs is by volunteers, more of whom are “always welcome to come out here,” he added.

Such volunteers, he said, may have a chance of piecing together one of the most significant discoveries unearthed at the park yet: Slowly the bones of a camel, possibly 60,000 years old, are being dug up and assembled into a skeleton.

The unique discovery, Conkling said, may indicate that the animal once migrated here from its habitat in what is now South America.

“We don’t have all of him yet,” he said, “but we’re finding about 300 specimens a day out there. That’s a lot of fossils.”

THE INTERPRETIVE CENTER AT RALPH B. CLARK REGIONAL PARK AT A GLANCE

Where: Off Rosecrans Avenue about a half-mile east of Beach Boulevard (the park straddles the city limits of both Buena Park and Fullerton).

Hours: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Monday. Digs are conducted on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Admission: Free.

Parking: $2 per car.

Information and group tours: (714) 670-8052.