The fossil record is incomplete because?

Answer 1

The fossil record is incomplete because:

A.) very few organisms were preserved as fossils.

B.) organisms tend to decay before becoming a fossil.

C.) animals with hard parts are preserved more easily.

D.) geological processes may destroy fossils.

E.) all of these.

ALL OF THESE!

Answer 2

The fossil record is incomplete because:

A.) very few organisms were preserved as fossils.

B.) organisms tend to decay before becoming a fossil.

C.) animals with hard parts are preserved more easily.

D.) geological processes may destroy fossils.

E.) all of these.


ALL OF THESE!

Answer 3

The totality of fossilized artifacts and their placement within the rock strata. It provides information about the history of life on earth, for instance what the organisms look like, where and when they live, how they evolved, etc. Second question 1: Only a very small proportion of organisms get buried quickly enough to prevent them decomposing

2: Not all organisms have hard parts

3; Sediments containing fossils are continually being eroded and removed along with their fossil content

4: metamorphism and deformation destroy fossils

5: many fossils are still buried in rocks not exposed at the surface

6: the sea floor in particular is being continuously recycled, so deep marine organisms are seldom preserved.

To become a fossil an organism needs to have hard parts, die and be buried in an anaerobic environment very quickly, and then be preserved through geological time, without being destroyed by tectonism or metamorphism, or removed by erosion. These are pretty rare circumstances, so organisms becoming fossilized are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Answer 4

Fossils are quite rare, as it takes a number of unusual circumstances a) to form a fossil from any given organism (and some organisms don't fossilise at all) b) for the fossil to be preserved and c) for the fossil to be discovered.

Even then, many fossils must have been found by people in the past and then destroyed or discarded. In Ancient China, people believed the dinosaur fossils were the remains of dragons, and used them, ground to powder, as medicines. China today has a lot of dinosaur fossils, but imagine what may have been lost!

As a result, the fossil record that we have probably represents something less than 5% of all the living organisms that have existed on this planet. Many organisms in the fossil record are so far only known through one single example. Finally, the fossil record is heavily slanted towards creatures which have hard, solid body parts, such as vertebrates.

That being the case, the really impressive thing about the fossil record is how much we have, and how many transitional forms are known.