– I loved science at school but I did not know what area to focus on at university level. Medicine? Biochemistry? Environmental Science? Chemistry?
Geological sciences, broadly, is the perfect blend of biology, chemistry, physics and environmental science that helps us address and explain everything natural that we see around us, why mountains, oceans and forests are where they are, why some countries are rich in mineral wealth and have good farmland, while others don’t, how the different countries came to have the characteristic flora and fauna that we are familiar with. It gives a long-term history of these things, how they have and can change and therefore allows us to predict what will happen in the future. I ended up specializing in marine geology once I discovered that the deep sea contains the best and most continuous records (mud layers) for unravelling climate change patterns in the past, and even how organisms evolve or go extinct to in response to climate and ocean change. Most people don’t know that the hidden mud layers at the bottom of the sea hold all these secrets.

– Earth is our home. There is no second planet we can escape to if life on Earth becomes too difficult. Earth may seem vast and robust but what you learn from studying it’s geological history is that its various ocean, ice, climate and biological systems, upon which we depend for food, jobs and safe stable places to live, is fragile. From the geological record (rocks, sediments and fossils) we can see that these systems have all changed radically in the past and they will change again as humans continue to disturb them. We need to know what the most vulnerable systems are for the climate and environment and what human activities cause the most damage. Politicians need to listen to this. Also from a very practical point of view we also need to know about the physical properties of the rock and sediment beneath our feet because humans use this for extracting raw materials (metal ores, sand, gravel, rock for building, chemicals for industry and food, etc.), to build on, dig into to burry our waste, and fix engineered structures into (e.g. roads, power generating infrastructure).

What can students work with when they have completed their education?

Environmental consultant for surveying rock and subsurface samples for the construction industry, mineral extraction industry/mining; offshore-sediment surveying industry; museum collections; advisory role to the climate/environmental sector.