As a geologist I am not so troubled by a lack of fossils. There is a lot of misunderstanding regarding fossils and their interpretations. For an animal to be discovered as a fossil, there are many things that have to occur. First, the animal must die in a place where the body is not eaten by other animals and that includes rodents that may chew on the bones. Floods and volcanic explosions are examples of natural events that might result in the burial of a body and that would increase the possibility that the remains would not be eaten.
There are very few areas where there are exposed fossils less than a couple of million years old. For any given piece of land, you can say that it is either in an area of erosion or an area of deposition. In areas of erosion, rain, streams, and rivers erode the soil. The eroded soil is then deposited In areas of deposition.
"Areas of deposition are generally flat low-lying areas. Areas of erosion are usually the steeper slopes and higher elevations. In other words, soil washes down the mountains and deposits on the lowlands. Bigfoot have generally been seen at high elevations in areas of erosion where a dead body would be less likely to be buried. It might get temporarily buried in a flood, but probably after a relatively short time geologically, the skeletal remains would be washed away by a river or stream in flood. If an animal dies in an area where the soil is depositing and it is not eaten, it will be buried deeper and deeper as the soil is deposited on top of it and because it is deeply buried, it is not likely to be discovered. Another important point is that bigfoot has a very wide territory. This would reduce the chances of a fossil being found. There are only a handful of T. Rex fossils known. T Rex, the dinosaur, was a relatively common animal for millions of years. There are vast areas where soil of this age is exposed, so why don’t we find more fossils? It’s simple; fossils of land animals are rare and hard to find. As you alluded to, typically, nature reuses the remains whenever possible. When there is a food supply, there is usually something to come around and eat it.
Finally a quote from Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans
"It seemed perfectly legitimate to give the scientific name Chirotherium to a fossil genus known only by its tracks,....Yet, at the same time, it seemed ridiculous, premature and absurd to describe the Himalayan Yeti, known not only by many tracks not identifiable....lbut also by morphology and behavior as related by many eyewitnesses"
Posted on Sep 6, 2002, 7:31 AM from IP address 65.188.64.221