La Brea - Pitch Lake

On the southwest tip of Trinidad is one of the world's few open pitch lakes from which this ingredient of asphalt has been mined and exported since 1859. Since the late 1800s, Trinidadian pitch has found its way into the streets of America, England, India, Singapore and even Japan, to name a few.

Visitors to the site walk across the fairly solid skin of the lake, but must do so with a guide since several areas are too soft to support people.

The attraction embodies the uniqueness, strange beauty and oddities of this environment. Sections of pitch move slowly simulating the same type of plate tectonics as the earth's surface. Sections wrinkle and the boundaries between them collect water where guppy-like fish live. The pitch is liquid enough to level scars caused by mining activity after a few days. Some areas vent bubbling sulfur or even sea water. Logs hundreds of years old float to the surface perfectly preserved. Some sections sport lily ponds with water birds and several bird species including hawks perch directly on the crust.

From first extraction until 1978, 283 million tons were mined and yet it is estimated that an additional 400 years supply remains. So much has been removed that the pitch lake is now 29 ft (9 m) below sea level. The cone shaped deposit is estimated to go down another 300 ft (100 m) with a round surface area of 115 acres (41 ha).

La Brea is on the Gulf of Paria only seven miles from Venezuela with which it shares a great petroleum reserve from which this lake derives. Most of the pitch melts at a high enough temperature to make it useful for roads, but a few pools are always the consistency of taffy.

When the first English landed in 1595 Amerindians who inhabited the site traded pitch which proved useful for caulking sailing ships. Early mining employed slaves who mined it with picks standing in water used to cool pits so as to further solidify the black gold.