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Professor Brent Wilson discovers Microscopic Fossils in Eastern Caribbean Geological History at UWI

For Release Upon Receipt - November 22, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad & Tobago – On Thursday, the Open Lectures Committee of The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine hosted the Professorial Inaugural Lecture of Professor Brent Wilson titled "Small Things Can Tell Big Stories: Microscopic Fossils in Eastern Caribbean Geological History." The lecture was held at Lecture Theatre 1, Block 13, Faculty of Engineering. 

According to Wilson, “The eastern Caribbean Sea straddles the crumpled and faulted boundaries between the Caribbean, South American and North American tectonic plates.  Consequently, the region contains some of the world’s most complex palaeo-oceanography and geology.  Micropalaeontology – the study of fossils mostly smaller than 1 mm – is used in the oil and gas industry to determine the age and environment of deposition of marine sedimentary rocks encountered in hydrocarbon wells. It has great promise as a tool for deciphering the region’s oceanographic and geological history, compilations of the results from micropalaeontological work showing how our region has evolved over geological time.” His lecture illustrated the potential of this tool using four case studies from the Eastern Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago, covering the past 12 million years.  

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PHOTO

Professors Brent Wilson and John Agard

(L-R) Professor John Agard, Head of the Department of Life Sciences, shares a moment with Professor Brent Wilson, after the lecture.

About THE UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with 45 physical site locations across the region, serving 16 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Food & Agriculture, and Social Sciences. 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.) 

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