How common are fossils?
Fossils are in fact very common. They have been discovered just about everywhere on earth and are, in some cases, quite abundant in certain rock outcrops like the famous Burgess Shale. Every county in Ohio has records of fossils. They are, in fact, so common that you can even find them in limestone slabs of sidewalks or even in the stone blocks that make up certain buildings like the State House in Columbus. What is rare is the chance that any given organism will become fossilized upon death. In order to become fossilized the organism must be buried in sediment rapidly so that it does not decay and become consumed by other organism. The likelihood of this happening is low, but modern examples do reveal that it can and did happen. In addition, many soft-bodied organism simply rot away before the sediment can solidify leaving no evidence of their remains. Thus fossils tend to favor organisms that lived in habitats prone to sediment deposition such as in or near water and tend to include
