The Trilobite
Ali Reach ’20’s love of geology started with the study of plate tectonics in middle school. When her high-school environmental science teacher gave her a special gift her senior year, her interest grew. Now an environmental geosciences major, she has conducted research at Pennsylvania’s Bear Valley Strip Mine for the last two summers. She also spent spring break in New Mexico with geology professors and students visiting Bandelier National Monument and other sites and also field-mapped the desert landscape of White Mesa and Picuris.
Photos: Emily Paine
Ali Reach ’20 loves fossils of all kinds, but the trilobite her high-school science teacher gave her is her favorite.
Ali Reach ’20 loves fossils of all kinds, but the trilobite her high-school science teacher gave her is her favorite.
“My AP environmental science teacher was really passionate about what he was talking about, which was the coolest thing, especially in high school. I basically nerded out over trilobites and fossils. At the end of the year, he gave me a trilobite he found in Arizona as my senior going-away present. Giving someone a fossil that you found is really meaningful.
The trilobite is the Pennsylvania state fossil. He knew I was going to school in Pennsylvania, and I’m also from Pennsylvania. The trilobite combines my high-school experience, my home and also what I’m doing here. That’s why it’s my favorite thing.
“I’m so attached to all the fossils I’ve found. I keep two rocks on me at any given time. I have some plant fossils that I found and just weird samples that I think are cool. I found a lot of the rocks before college or during the Bucknell geology labs and field trips. A lot of my other rocks and minerals are gifts that people got for me from all over the place. It’s the world’s best (and cheapest) gift. … I’m still trying to find my own trilobite.”
— As told to Kathryn Nicolai ’20