Why might there be gaps in a fossil record?

Answer 1

Well it depends on which Fossil Record your talking about. I mean our earth has seen 2 mass extinctions, One of which probably wiped out alot of the fossils that we might have had. Beyond that we are finding tons and tons of Missing links in the Human fossil record.

Answer 2

If you mean gaps such as a 'missing link' between a fossil and a modern species, in addition to all the above, the 'leap and spurt' model of evolution says that evolution occurs in dramatic leaps, and transitional fossils are not found because transitory species are so short lived they won't imprint on the fossil record. In other words, even if the fossil record was very complete and detailed, transitory, short lived species might not be present.

Answer 3

There are many reasons.

Many species are rare now and in the past, and a rare animal is much less likely to be fosilized than a common one, and even less likely to be found and identified (correctly) by a human.

Other species preserve poorly, as they have soft bodies. Others live in environments that make it unlikely to become deeply burried soon after they die, limiting their chance to become fossils.

Finally the rocks that are exposed to the surface where fossils can be found are not evenly distributed. Sometimes rocks from a specific time are more rare than others.

In other cases the "gap" may represent a species that lived in a place where people have not looked closely for fossils. Some of those places may be very difficult to access as they are either very remote, in war zones or even at the bottom of the ocean. Many modern species only live in restricted areas unless we looked in the right places their fossils would not be found milions of years in the future. Sometimes knowing where to look is very hard, and sometimes the right place may be under 1000 ft or more of other rocks.

Answer 4

Yeah its a combination of the fact that fossilization does not happen all the time and that we have to look in the right place to find them. Earth is kind of a big place. The only people who have problems with the slow pace of science are creationists. The actual scientists know we aren't going to find everything right away.

Answer 5

The most likely explanation is that we just haven't found those fossils yet.