Question

Choose the FALSE statement. A. Some organisms fossilize when frozen or dried out. B. Bacteria can help destroy dead plants and animals. C. It is common for a plant or animal to fossilize when it dies. D. Rapid burial under small-sized sediment increases the chance for fossilization to occur.

Answer 1

The false statement is - C. It is common for a plant or animal to fossilize when it dies.

In for a plant or animal to fossilize, there have to certain conditions that will enable that process, or rather preservation. That is not the case usually, and considering the amount of animals and plants that existed, and even more the ones that existed in the geological past, the amount of fossils is extremely small. If it was common for the plants and animals to be fossilized, even 1 out of 1,000, than we would have been seeing and finding fossils pretty much on every spot of the planet, but that is not the case.