Meet Reno Tarquinio, Senior Major in Geological Sciences

Where did you grow up?

Steubenville, OH (like Pittsburgh but more West Virginia)

What do you like most about the EEPS department?

All of the EEPS majors are welcoming and fun, as are the professors. Also, every class in the department is taught with a lot of enthusiasm and that makes me (and probably everyone else) really excited to come to class.

What’s something you don’t know how to do but would like to learn?

I want to learn how to speak Finnish. I also want to learn how to fly a plane but that might be a stretch.

Tell us about your senior thesis research.

I’m working with Dr. Harvey to quantify volatile elements in Australasian tektites and microtektites. These are glassy rocks that are the result of a meteorite impact, and these specific tektites are found across a quarter of the planet. We are going to correlate the locations of these samples with their composition to examine the trend between the particle size and volatile element loss. Our samples come from Thailand, Java, Australia, and Antarctica and we are excited to study all of these samples together to establish this trend.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I spend my free time doing graphic design projects and eating burritos

What are you most enthused about for your future?

I’m really excited about my field camp this summer because I’ll be going to Turkey to look at the North Anatolian Fault Zone for 5 weeks. If I had to guess what I will take away from that experience, it will probably be a very expensive rug.