why the fossil record is incomplete?

Answer 1

Because fossils are all about luck. Meaning two things:
1) Finding it is luck. Every day new fossils are found.
2) The 'creation' of a fossil is also luck. The environment needed to lead to fossilization is rare and not all parts of the world have provided those circumstances. So from some parts of the world we will never get fossils and thus many species are lost to this wonderful way of preserving (pre)history.

Answer 2

There are numerous reasons, I'll list a few:

1) Not all animals get preserved. In order to be preserved you need to be buried under sediments, and not all environments are burying things. Think of the tops of hills and mountains, nothing gets buried there. However, things at the bottom of valleys or on the seafloor are more likely to get buried.

2) Some animals simply decay. A soft-bodied organism is simply unlikely to leave a fossil record. Think about a dinosaur fossil, what is it made of? A hard skeleton. But many animals, particularly those in the sea, don't have a hard skeleton to be preserved.

3) Rock gets destroyed. Even if an animal gets preserved as a fossil because it has hard parts and is in an area of active sedimentation, rock is always being recycled through plate tectonics. It can be melted, eroded, or take to such high temperatures and pressures that traces of fossils get eradicated.

4) We haven't looked everywhere. Look outside your window and think of how much rock you see. Unless you happen to be near a canyon wall or a highway road cut, chances are that you won't see any rock exposed. Most of the world is covered with plants, trees, ice and soil, making the job of finding the fossils buried in rocks beneath a challenge. It's likely that we've only found a small percentage of all of the fossils that are waiting to be discovered!

Answer 3

I concur with the answer that a number of factors contributing to fossilizing have to take place. A fossil occurs because these factors have worked together to make a fossil. And that in probability is only minuscule considering the biodiversity that should have existed in times past as it is now. I doubt whether fossilization occurs in modern age at all, I mean there are no grand earthquakes taking a hell of a lot of animals and plants with them underground, seepage of volcanic or other chemicals to petrify the living tissue and the enormous pressure and temperature that goes with it.....or is it happening in any of the South Sea Islands or places where volcanoes keep erupting and going under the sea?

Answer 4

The main parts that become fosslised are the hard parts such as shells, bones, teeth etc. Not all remain in situ, some parts are washed away and may be found some distance away from other related parts. Soft parts are not fossilised although impressions of them may be found, sometimes filled in by fine grained sediments.
Whether something is fossilised or not depends on what it is, where it is (e.g. in water, on dry land) and what happens to it. Over a short period of time it may be washed away e.g. in a tide or river or perhaps get damaged/vapourised in a volacnic eruption. Over long periods of time, it may be in a sediment that becomes folded or heated to extremes and it may or may not last, depending on the physical environment.

Even if fossils last for millions or hundreds of thousands of years and are exposed, they are then open to weathering and erosion....... again, it depends on the physical environment.

It is hardly surprising that the fossil record is incomplete, but new finds are being turned up all the time and research is on-going.

Answer 5

Incomplete fossil record is only proof of Intelligent Design, if lack of Noah's Ark proves that the biblical account of that story never happened. Christians can't have it both ways.

Answer 6

It takes a very special set of circumstances to create a fossil. The creature has to die in just the right conditions, a whole range of things have to happen to preserve the fossil. Then, millions of years later, it has to be uncovered so that we can find it. It's amazing we have as good a selection of fossils as we do.

One great illustration of this is the passenger pigeon. As recently as the 19th century, there were huge flocks of millions of these birds at a time in North America. But the species died out completely in 1914. Not even a single skeleton exists today.eve

Answer 7

1 other reason is because of the movement of the tectonic plates.Years ago the land mass on the earth was joined (you can pretty much still fit the pieces together. When they broke up some species were separated. Marsupials (with a pouch) such as Kangaroo's are consequently in Australia, though there is one (the possum or appossum - can't quite remember it's name) in South America. These plates were near to each other, but the land mass in between (Antartica) is difficult to explore. There are thought to be intermediate species linking these and maybe others underneath there.

Answer 8

Perhaps there occurs an event triggering a rapid mutation whereby all of a particular species are affected by the event and beget another species whereby the species affected simply dies out leaving in place the new improved version,or rather adapted version, which would account for there existing no completion as you say because there was no long drawn out evolvement as opposed to the stated herein.

On the other hand we have our wisdom teeth pulled out which seems to infer that there was a time when we needed the teeth but no longer, so the first human to be born without wisdom teeth will be proof of evolution?

It makes since because it explains the necesary numbers to sustain the new species.

And the fact that our wisdom teeth are pulled seems proof in itself of evolution unless you think we were created for, or by, dentists?

Darn, I just rained on your party by presenting something that is true. I apologize for thinking you were seeking truth.

Answer 9

Because not every living thing leaves a fossil behind. And of course we haven't dug everywhere yet!

Answer 10

Because becoming a Fossil is a very rare occurrence, and finding one is an even rarer occurrence.