The Penn Stater Magazine

Meet Your Future Volcanologists

July 28, 2010 at 8:59 am Ryan Jones 2 comments

We got a great email the other day from Joshua Pechter ’97, an alum who lives in Atlanta with his wife Meredith Carr Pechter ’98 and their four young children. We figured our readers would get a kick out of it. Here’s part of the note:

“My twin boys love volcanoes. While some boys idolize their favorite sports heroes, my guys love geologists — including Pete LaFemina, an assistant professor of geoscienes at Penn State. Pete is featured on a History Channel program called How the Earth Was Made. In an attempt to be cool to my kids, I wrote Pete an email… A few weeks later, we got a response. From Panama, Pete replied that he had carried with him lava from our favorite volcano, Hekla in Iceland, which would be sent to our boys when he got back to the U.S. My twins were over the moon.”

Not long after, we got a follow-up email, with this photo attached:

Good stuff, huh?

You can catch Pete LaFemina on How the Earth Was Made, including this complete episode on the History Channel website (he first shows up in the episode’s second segment.) And I imagine in 20 years or so, we might be seeing the Pechter twins with a volcano show of their own.

Ryan Jones, senior editor

Entry filed under: College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Penn State alumni, Penn State faculty. Tags: History Channel, How The Earth Was Made, Joshua Pechter, Meredith Carr Pechter, Pete LaFemina.