Xavier Moonan

Xavier Moonan

After working as a Geologist for two years at Petrotrin, I realised that a sound Structural Geology background was crucial to unlocking the hidden exploration plays in Trinidad. I personally found the course material of the MSc Structural Geology with Geophysics meticulously covered all styles of deformation and their subsequent interaction and relationship with sediment depositional patterns. I especially enjoyed the Spanish Pyrenees field trip, as it served as excellent analogues for much of the deformation styles buried in the subsurface of Trinidad. The programme was flexible, allowing me to use my company’s data for my thesis and as such, I was able to make an original contribution to Petrotrin as software packages such as Midland Valley 2D Move had not been applied to Trinidad data prior to my project. My MSc thesis was further chosen by AAPG for presentation at their ICE conference in Milan, Italy 2011.

The MSc. programme also allowed me to meet and work with persons from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities, forging great friendships and contacts dispersed in companies and PhD programmes around the world. I strongly recommend the programme; it’s intensive, sometimes exhausting, but genuinely hardcore.