If you tell someone that for the whole week you learned about rocks and the earth's origin and so on. They will tell you that you are weird and you have a boring life. Someone did actually tell me that. That’s because they asked me what I was doing and I told them: looking at rocks! Indeed, I am looking at rock and it rocks. The first day of the internship at PetroSeychelles I met my supervisor Mr. Jean Luc Mondon. He introduced himself and he made sure that I knew what PetroSeychelles was all about. To be frank I don’t usually tolerate the idea of sitting in an office and doing nothing, but this was no ordinary office and I was doing no ordinary work. He got me started by instructing that I go over the basics in Geology, for someone who is doing Geography at school I just thought. “…oh its rocks. Who doesn’t know rocks. I see rocks everyday…” I couldn’t have been more wrong. I spent a whole day trying to grasp the idea that the earth is not just a ball with earth and water. I learned about the layers of the earth. The formation of the earth. Minerals and rocks and the interior of the earth. (There are more topics but you’ll be here all day if I start listing all of it down) In basic terms Geology describes our planets composition, behavior and history. It can also be referred to as geo science. If you’ve had a question that you’ve wanted the answer to about the earth…how it was formed, what might happen in the future etc.…then geology is the subject to look up.I learned about the geologic timescale…which is a timescale but in geologic theory and evidence. I’ve come to terms that the subject is not just about geography or ‘just’ rocks. The subject has the inclusion of biology, physics and chemistry. From the chemical composition to each rock to the structure or where to find them. On the second day, came the exciting part. Looking at rocks and minerals, (Yeah in your mind there’s that little voice going “excited about rocks?”) the thing is I could get excited about rocks because I had a basic understanding for what I was going to look at. It was no longer just going to look at those heavy things that we build houses with, it was about how the rocks or the mineral were formed. Minerals, rocks and fossils were laid down on the table and I was asked to look at them and identify them. I was given a book with the description and other information about the minerals and rock. “That’s an easy job,” that voice at the back of my head said, “there are pictures. How can you go wrong with pictures?” Believe me, you can go wrong with pictures. The minerals each had their unique properties and he asked me, “how much time do you think you can complete this?” and I said l “don’t know, maybe 10 mins” and he looked at me and said, “this is complicated and might take some time, how much time do you want?” My response was “okay I think I’m going to take 3o minutes.” It took me about two hours to identify some minerals and rocks. I barely got two thirds of it right! On the third day, I was given the task of drawing cross section from a geological map (a continuation of the previous day’s work) it wasn’t an easy task but with help and guidance I managed to complete two cross section diagrams. I also went for a presentation about how oil is formed. How oil is extracted and how to identify if an area has oil. It was very informative and it had the wow factor that I still didn’t expect I would get from the topic. Later on, I received a task of writing a research paper about “The origins of the Seychelles Archipelago” an assignment that I completed at 12 on Friday. I learned how Seychelles is a special island for having granitic islands and that its amongst the oldest islands in the world!!! The internship is a really interesting programme and the work that all the organisations are doing in the Blue Economy is marvelous. This week is almost to an end and I am excited to find out what is in store for me in the next week. I know that the others are also having a great time and they are learning as much as I am one way or another. Keep it rocking!!! Joshua Sofola
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AuthorThe interns of the Prosperity & Environment: Promoting sustainable development opportunities for youth in the Blue Economy sector. Archives
January 2018
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