300-million-year-old shark fossil found in Kentucky

          


Some of the teeth on the 300-million-year-old shark fossil, recently discovered by Jay Wright, a miner for Webster County Coal. Image credit: Charles Bertram|STAFF
Back when Kentucky was like the Gulf of Mexico, about 300 million years ago, a shark from the Edestus genus swam the seas in what is now Webster County.
It was a big critter — 20 to 25 feet long, weighing about 1,000 pounds — and it had large, sharp teeth, the better to tear apart the soft fish upon which it preyed.
Fast forward to current times: Kentucky has ceased to be a primeval resort for Edestus and its relatives, and hundreds of millions of years of rock cover their skeletons.
But on Feb. 24, Jay Wright, 25, a miner for Webster County Coal, noticed something jutting from the roof of the Dotiki Mine, where he was bolting a roof 700 feet underground.