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Fossils found in this area are from the Cambrian Pennsylvanian, and Cretaceous Periods. What is it? That’s for any help! My foot is there for size reference. Maybe 6? Inch diameter

Hi everyone! I've been running across this forum over and over in my searches for fossil-related information for the past couple of years. I finally decided to join. As you might guess from my handle, my special interest is in the nimravids such as the rather catlike Dinictis. Trying to unearth literally every bit of nimravid information the Internet has to offer led me here time and time again. But whenever I came here I would often get pleasantly distracted by looking at discussions about other fossils too. I have a piece of jaw with a few teeth in it found in the White River Badlands. The seller claimed it was Dinictis and I scoured the Internet to find out for sure- could also be Hoplophoneus, too, as they look similar. (I'm not 100% sure yet and some of the little teeth are broken, but I tend to think the seller's guess was as good as any. It's not an amazing fossil, just a little piece really, but I'm so glad to have it. Anyway, it is from that fossil, or what I think it may be, that I take my username.) I'm still learning a lot but I am very fond of fossils. I am in my mid-twenties. I have a master's degree but it isn't in anything that remotely helped me learn about fossils. I devoured the one general Earth Science class that I had to take for my bachelor's and was just so excited to learn about... everything. Syncline valleys? Anticline valleys? Time to figure out what every valley is by the road cuts! So... I realize I have a lot to learn. I was educated in a conservative setting where the geologic timeline was summarily dismissed as fairly meaningless sediments from Noah's flood, so everything I am learning now is just from my own personal research. The rocks have always called to me. I want to learn more of the Earth's story. There is always more to discover. Currently I reside in Middle Tennessee near the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau. It is beautiful country here and I have quickly grown to love it. Work keeps me busy, though, and I haven't found any fossils here yet. I am close to the Caney Fork River and the Cumberland River. I'm just not familiar with this area yet- I see the big picture but don't have a lot of human connections outside of my job. Work brought me here. For my job I cover almost the entire Upper Cumberland so I drive around a lot, through maybe a dozen counties. The road cuts with the lovely layers fill me with awe and I want to understand the geology of this area better. I have worn out the Wikipedia pages on general Cumberland Plateau geology. I grew up in Southeastern Tennessee in the Tennessee Valley. My grandfather used to take me fossil hunting when I was a kid. We found mostly crinoid stalks or pieces of them. We also went to this one railroad cut where we would find spherical objects in the shale. I now suspect they were concretions of some sort. He amassed a nice collection of fossil crinoids, some decent ones. He also has some amazing petrified wood. He was very physically fit until just a few years ago and found many neat things on his solo adventures in the wilds. I think my life is inundated with pieces of crinoid stalks. They tend to lurk in all of my boxes and storage containers. Just today I was looking for something and ran across several. Whenever I'm back in my old haunts in SE TN I poke around in stream beds and always come across some. I've always been good at picking out patterns or odd-looking details so even when I am not looking for them, fossils tend to jump out at me. (Four-leaf clovers tend to do the same thing. I find them by accident constantly.) I would like to start looking for petrified wood. I didn't know until recently that petrified wood could sometimes be found in streambeds even in Tennessee- I need to ask my grandfather more about that. Pardon my vast ignorance. This is a whole new world opening up to me- it's like rediscovering a lost love and realizing it is SO MUCH BIGGER than I ever could have imagined. For now I don't have a lot to add in the way of awesome fossil finds. Mostly crinoid stems, probably not worth uploading pictures of. I also have found quite a few fossil shark teeth in Florida and Georgia barrier islands. My collection of things I have found is small, but I have a lifetime ahead of me to grow it. Someday, it would be amazing to travel to the White River Badlands and hunt for Oligocene or Eocene material. At least there would be an (albeit very tiny) chance of finding saber critter material! For now, though, my hunting is limited to my neck of the woods, and that is plenty to keep me occupied.

I have been told that this is a piece of rugosa coral. It was found about 5 miles from the Tennessee River, near Scottsboro, Alabama. What do you think? It was found on a gravel road with similar colored rocks, etc. about 50 years ago. Age? Era?