If Dinosaurs Really Existed, Wouldn’t Their Bones Be Everywhere? — Here’s How Scientists Explain It

If the dinosaurs roamed the Earth for more than 165 million years, shouldn’t their bones and fossils be everywhere on the planet? This is a common conspiracy theorist’ argument that aims to question the validity of our history and the existence of dinosaurs.

This is a question stemming from the lack of understanding of how fossilization works, and just how rare and hard for it to occur. Not to say, it has been around 66 million years since the Mesozoic Era, and most of the remains of the creatures that lived from that time have already decayed.

Fossilization Is Exceptionally Rare

Did you know that scientists often find dinosaur fossils not on land, but in ancient riverbeds, lake sediments, or rare bonebeds? This is simply because other environments like mountains, dense forests, or dry plains do not have the required conditions to be able to preserve dinosaurs’ bones and fossils.

So, for the dinosaurs’ bones to be fossilized, they need to have a quick burial in sediments before oxidation and other organisms feed and decompose them. Only in those conditions could mineral flow through their bone tissue to form the fossil that we unearth today.

Which is why Dr. David Button from the Natural History Museum explains that most dinosaur fossils are found near rivers and lakes where the water could cover the remains with mud immediately. However, most dinosaur deaths occurred in dry conditions or locations where this primary requirement was impossible.

Read more: Thought.co

Geological Bias Shapes Where Bones Are Found

Why We Don't Find Dinosaur Bone Everywhere

There is also a big geological bias that determines where we can possibly find dinosaur fossils. This is because Earth is constantly changing and moving, where the tectonic plates collide, volcanoes erupt, new lands get formed, and land erodes.

So not only the dinosaur bones, but also the sediments that cover them up to be preserved could have either eroded away or been metamorphosed beyond recognition. Together with these geological processes are the fossils that got destroyed before we even had the chance to look for them.

Discovery Requires Luck and the Right Tools

Earth may look small compared to the grand scheme of things in the universe, but for us humans and even for the massive dinosaurs, it is a very huge place. Additionally, the fossil remains will not be made up of all their bones completely. More often than not, it would just be a tooth or a bone fragment, which is way smaller and is hard to find, especially in this modern world.

So, until we developed a technology that could scan for these remains and immediately identify if they are from the Mesozoic era, the discoveries of dinosaur bones would require a lot of luck, even if you know where to look for it scientifically.

Read more: IFLScience

Misleading Absence Isn’t Evidence of Fake History

Conspiracy theorists are using this argument to deny the existence of dinosaurs and the evidence that supports them. However, paleontologists emphasize that the reason is the sheer difficulty of achieving the right conditions for fossilization to occur.

Another is the massive gap between the dinosaurs’ time and humanity’s arrival, which is about 66 million years. So many things could have happened during that time that are beyond our control. Even the very theory of the asteroid that ended their era could have played a role.

But If Dinosaurs Don’t Exist…

Author's Final Thoughts

Dinosaurs roamed the Earth more than humans could have ever put into perspective. But since fossils appear only under very specific conditions, such as rapid burial, sediment flow, and stability of the geological location, it is rare for us to find them. That is the answer to the original question of: if dinosaurs really existed, wouldn’t their bones be everywhere on the planet?

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