This week, your favourite Mag­a­zine fea­tures Ge­ol­o­gist Can­dice Richard­son. The ad­ven­tur­ous 27–year-old is em­ployed with Petrotrin and has been a ge­ol­o­gist for the past three years. Ge­ol­o­gy may seem a bit for­eign to some, but to Richard­son it is her life. From our re­search, a ge­ol­o­gist here in Trinidad and To­ba­go can earn from $10,000 to $20,000 per month de­pend­ing on ex­pe­ri­ence and in­dus­try.

A south girl to her heart, Richard­son, is a past stu­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Girls' Gov­ern­ment and the Holy Faith Con­vent, Pe­nal where she pur­sued Math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish Lan­guage, Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture, Span­ish, Ge­og­ra­phy, Chem­istry, Bi­ol­o­gy, Physics and Ad­di­tion­al Math­e­mat­ics. She then at­tend­ed the St. Bene­dicts Col­lege where she pur­sued Ge­og­ra­phy, Chem­istry and Bi­ol­o­gy (at Ad­vanced Lev­els). Af­ter de­cid­ing to be­come a Ge­ol­o­gist in form 6, Richard­son at­tend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus where she earned her BSc, Ge­ol­o­gy. Be­low Richard­son dis­clos­es a lot about this in­ter­est­ing ca­reer in an in­ter­view. Read on...

What are the func­tions of a Ge­ol­o­gist?

The func­tions would vary de­pend­ing on the in­dus­try in which you work. Cur­rent­ly, I am a De­vel­op­ment Ge­ol­o­gist and as such I am re­quired to pro­vide ge­o­log­i­cal sup­port for the drilling pro­gram by find­ing de­vel­op­ment drilling lo­ca­tions in as­signed ar­eas. I analyse and in­ter­pret da­ta on the sub­sur­face (us­ing seis­mic, elec­tric well logs and pa­le­on­to­log­i­cal da­ta). These drilling pro­pos­als have to be tech­ni­cal­ly sound and eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able for the com­pa­ny. I pro­duce maps, re­ports and mon­tages and con­tin­u­al­ly mon­i­tor drilling op­er­a­tions as well as su­per­vise log­ging of wells and at­tend site vis­its with oth­er de­part­ments.

Why did you want to be­come a Ge­ol­o­gist?

I al­ways loved Ge­og­ra­phy and when I got in­to Form 3, I asked my teacher what I could do with Ge­og­ra­phy and she de­scribed ge­ol­o­gy as the study of rocks. She said that ge­ol­o­gy gives an ex­pla­na­tion for most of the ge­o­graph­i­cal fea­tures we would study. I did some dig­ging on my own and de­cid­ed I like it, but I want­ed it to be a lu­cra­tive ca­reer so ini­tial­ly I de­cid­ed on Geo­physics, how­ev­er, by sixth form I changed over to ge­ol­o­gy.

Where can Ge­ol­o­gists be em­ployed?

In Trinidad, there are po­si­tions avail­able in oil field, wa­ter re­source sec­tors, quar­ry op­er­a­tions and en­vi­ron­men­tal agen­cies.

What are the re­quire­ments to get in­to the field?

For a BSc Gen­er­al (Ge­ol­o­gy) de­gree from UWI, Mona - two GCE 'A' lev­el pass­es in ap­proved sci­ence sub­jects. It is al­so handy to have Ad­di­tion­al Math­e­mat­ics (Add Maths) or A'lev­el Math­e­mat­ics for some of the cours­es like Hy­drol­o­gy. At UWI St Au­gus­tine where the Pe­tro­le­um Geo­sciences pro­gramme for Ge­ol­o­gists is of­fered the re­quire­ments may be dif­fer­ent.

(NOTE: Ac­cord­ing to UWI's site http://sta.uwi.edu/ad­mis­sions/pro­grammes, UWI, St. Au­gus­tine of­fers an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­cred­it­ed un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree in Pe­tro­le­um Geo­science. The re­quire­ments are:

• Pass­es in five sub­jects at CXC (CSEC) Gen­er­al Pro­fi­cien­cy (Grades I or II pre- 1998 and Grades I, II or III from June 1998) or GCE O-lev­el which must in­clude Eng­lish Lan­guage, Chem­istry and Math­e­mat­ics or ap­proved equiv­a­lents.

• Three (3) GCE A-lev­el pass­es in Math­e­mat­ics, Physics or Chem­istry and one oth­er Sci­ence sub­ject).

What is the length of study?

Three years

In ad­di­tion to what was men­tioned, where can one study?

In ad­di­tion to UWI Mona and UWI, St. Au­gus­tine, one can study at Col­orado School of Mines and Texas A&M.

Do you think your course of study lacked any­thing?

At the time I was there, Mona was go­ing through some kind of tran­si­tion, some cours­es were merged and some were com­plete­ly cut and field work had been re­duced so there was def­i­nite­ly a lot lack­ing. But from speak­ing with the more re­cent grad­u­ates, many things were put back in­to the cur­ricu­lum and even some ad­di­tion­al re­sources as well. The good thing with Mona is the oil field is not your on­ly op­tion. Many of the per­sons who grad­u­at­ed with me are em­ploy­ees at WASA, some are teach­ers and oth­ers work at the EMA and many oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Are you ca­pa­ble of deal­ing with every­thing that you en­counter in the world of work?

I be­lieve that I can do all things with faith in God. It is al­ways a chal­lenge but I al­ways say I'm still learn­ing and with faith and per­se­ver­ance I al­ways get through.

Is there a mar­ket here for Ge­ol­o­gists or is the field sat­u­rat­ed?

I don't think there is a great need for ge­ol­o­gists, but as de­scribed be­fore, the two main pro­grammes pro­duce grad­u­ates with dif­fer­ent cri­te­ria. The pe­tro­le­um geo­sciences stu­dents are specif­i­cal­ly suit­ed for the oil field and have to be as­sim­i­lat­ed there whilst the Mona grad­u­ates can find op­por­tu­ni­ties else­where (as de­scribed be­fore). Em­ploy­ers in the work field with the ex­cep­tion of trainee pro­grammes, look for the per­sons with ex­pe­ri­ence and as a new grad­u­ate in all fields that is an is­sue as well with ge­ol­o­gy.

What are the ad­van­tages/re­wards of your job?

The biggest ad­van­tage for me is that I love my job and hon­est­ly, I love where I am – I couldn't have asked for a bet­ter place to start. In­deed, it is a good learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment and I have very sup­port­ive col­leagues. Re­wards - drilling wells, and find­ing oil! Oil in the bar­rel is mon­ey in the bank. In ad­di­tion it is great learn­ing about where Trinidad came from and how we evolved - Ge­o­log­i­cal­ly that is!

What are the dis­ad­van­tages/dif­fi­cul­ties of your job?

Mak­ing tough de­ci­sions - some of them may cost the com­pa­ny. The oth­er thing is, work­ing on­shore Trinidad; you look at fields and think "are there still re­cov­er­able re­serves that are ac­ces­si­ble? Are the fields de­plet­ed?" Al­so, be­ing an en­vi­ron­men­tal buff my­self, see­ing vir­gin for­est cleared for lo­ca­tions is some­times heart­break­ing.

Is it a male dom­i­nat­ed/fe­male dom­i­nat­ed field? (If it is a male dom­i­nat­ed field, how do you feel about be­ing a fe­male in this male dom­i­nat­ed field?)

Yes it is a male dom­i­nat­ed field, very much so but in my group there are five girls and two guys, so we feel a bit em­pow­ered on my side.

Op­por­tu­ni­ties for trav­el/pro­mo­tion

Op­por­tu­ni­ties for trav­el in­clude An­nu­al Ge­o­log­i­cal con­fer­ences host­ed by or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Amer­i­can As­so­ci­a­tion of Pe­tro­le­um Ge­ol­o­gists (AAPG) and the Ge­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GSTT). Field trips as well as sec­ond­ments al­low the op­por­tu­ni­ty to trav­el abroad. Pro­mo­tions de­pend on com­pa­ny pol­i­cy.

De­scribe a day in the life of a Ge­ol­o­gist?

No two days are ever the same. Get to work; we have our of­fice work which would be re­lat­ed to the pro­duc­ing maps and in­ter­pret­ing da­ta. Project peer re­views are an im­por­tant part of our work, so they are held reg­u­lar­ly. Meet­ings the ge­ol­o­gists have to at­tend, dai­ly drilling meet­ings as well as the week­ly plan­ning meet­ings. We may al­so be re­quired to go on planned or im­promp­tu field vis­its, ei­ther to check on wells or lo­ca­tions. Ba­si­cal­ly, we are busy most times.

What is your most mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence as a Ge­ol­o­gist?

My first well. I was so sick and ner­vous. And when I got to the well site I saw an ocelot. A rare mo­ment and I was hop­ing it was a good sign.

Do you have any re­grets get­ting in­to this field?

No re­grets.

Any ad­vice for young peo­ple want­i­ng to get in­to this field?

It's a great field. If you want to go in­to the oil field; the pe­tro­le­um geo­sciences pro­gramme bet­ter equips you. Ge­ol­o­gy is a beau­ti­ful sci­ence and you have to love it. I be­lieve you should al­ways love what you're do­ing.