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While mining for coal nearly 700 feet under the hills of Kentucky, Webster County Coal Company employee Jay Wright discovered something he never expected- the fully fossilized jawbone of a 300-million-year-old shark protruding from a rock face as if in mid attack. 

The jawbone is believed to have come from the long-extinct shark genus Edestus, a collection of sharks that grew up to 25 feet, weighing at least half a ton. So what is this gigantic, prehistoric shark doing in the middle of a Kentucky coal mine? Well, about 300 million years ago, most of Kentucky was on the bottom of the ocean, part of the Gulf of Mexico. 

"I looked up to see if any more was going to fall, and that's when I noticed the jaw," said Wright, recalling the falling debris that lead to the fossil’s discovery. "My initial thought was, "Gosh, what is this thing?'"

In order to accurately answer that very question, the Coal Company called in Jerry Weisenfluh, the associate director of the Kentucky Geological Survey. After identifying the genus of shark matching the massive jaw, Weisenfluh also praised the discovery of the Kentucky Miner.

“[Mines] are like 'natural' history museums,” joked Weisenfluh.

For more information, or to check out pictures of the actual find, click here.