Sometimes I think my students lack a sense of humor

It turns out that thousands of years before the falls retreated to their current position, a big chunk of that upper layer of rock fell on top of a giant beaver who was unfortunate enough to be building a dam in the vicinity. (When they say giant, they aren’t kidding. Those suckers are apparently about 300 pounds full grown. One of my students, who is a football player, said that it’s too bad they’re extinct as they might be useful on the football team.) The skeleton of the beaver, which is on display at the Science Museum of Minnesota, was radiocarbon dated to determine how long ago it died. The students use this age to determine the overall rate of retreat for the falls.

I’m not sure if the giant beaver is the actual mascot of Oregon State, but it should be. Some of the iterations they used when I was there looked too much like Chip ‘n Dale