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Hard rock
Fourth-year earth and ocean sciences student
Kerri Heft holds up some core samples of pillow basalt rock,
extracted from 200 metres below the seafloor of the equatorial
Pacific, 3,500 km west of Panama. Heft spent almost six weeks
as a student trainee aboard the JOIDES Resolution,
an ocean-going research drill ship used by the Ocean Drilling
Program (ODP), an international partnership of scientists
and research institutions exploring the evolution and structure
of Earth. The ship, which was docked at Victoria's Ogden Point
July 812, features 13 scientific labs and a 61.5-metre
drilling derrick. "This cruise was the best form of education
I could have dreamed of," says Heft, whose honours thesis
focuses on the chemical changes of oceanic crust over time.
This fall, she heads for a job as a field engineer with Schlumberger
Oil & Gas in Alberta.
Valerie Shore photo
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