Fossil Ridge Park is a public property in

Sherman Oaks Sherman Oaks (founded in 1927) is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles, California within the San Fernando Valley region. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population densit ...

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It is owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which is a California state agency.

Location

It is located on the corner of Mulholland Drive and Beverly Glen Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, a neighbourhood of the city of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

.Google Maps
/ref>Myron Levin

''

The Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the larges ...

'', October 01, 1991Jane Hulse
The Hills Are Alive--With Fragments of Past
''The Los Angeles Times'', February 29, 1996 At the northern end of the park is the Buckley School, a private school. On the east side is

Mulholland Estates Mulholland Estates is a guard gated community in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California, US. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer William Mulholland. Although properties in the estate have a 90210 ZIP code and th ...

, a

gated community A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences ...

. Access to the park used to be blocked by security guards at Mulholland Estates.Koch, A.L., Santucci, V.L. and Weasma, T.R., 2004
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area paleontological survey.
Technical Report NPS/NRGRD/GRDTR-04/01. Denver, Colorado: Geologic Resources Division, National Park Service. p. 18 However, since 2011, members of the public are allowed to drive or walk on Westpark Road, which is inside Mulholland Estates, to have access to the park. However, parking on Westpark Road is not allowed. Since 2002, it has been adjacent to the

Oak Forest Canyon Natural Area An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisph ...

that is also owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.Group Buys Supposed 'Birthplace' of Tarzan
''The Los Angeles Times'', November 27, 2002 Oak Forest Canyon was purchased to facilitate access to Fossil Ridge Park.

History

The idea of the park was conceived in 1986. It was dedicated five years later, in 1991. Actor

Ed Asner Eddie Asner (; November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021) was an American actor. He is most notable for portraying Lou Grant on the sitcom ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (1970–1977) and drama '' Lou Grant'' (1977–1982), making him one of the few ...

and local politician

Zev Yaroslavsky Zev Yaroslavsky (born December 21, 1948) is a politician from Los Angeles County, California. He was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from District 3, an affluent district which includes the San Fernando Valley, the Westsi ...

spoke at the dedication. However, it was only completed and properly opened in late 1995. The initial parcel of land (56 acres) was donated by

Kenneth Kai Chang Kenneth is a given name of Gaelic origin. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byname m ...

, the real estate developer who created Mulholland Estates, to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Moreover, Chang later agreed to fund some of the trails and a visitor center. The overall landmass is . It contains many fossils of marine animals. The area is protected, and rocks with fossils on them cannot be moved.

Fossils

This park contains fossiliferous diatomaceous sandstones of Middle to Late Miocene Modelo Formation. It one of the few remaining fossil fish localities that has not been either destroyed or made inaccessible due to urban development. Shown is one of several slabs of diatomaceous sandstone with abundant fossil fish (perhaps a species of herring) collected in the 1970s from the area now underneath the Mulholland Estates security gate/access road. Many hundreds if not thousands of these -inch fish must have encountered an area of low oxygen content and all died at once. FossilRidgePark

References

{{Reflist Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles Parks in Los Angeles Fossil parks in the United States Paleontology in California