Family and friends gathered on Friday, April 4, to mark a rite of passage for graduating Earth Science students. The annual Earth Ring Ceremony saw 10 students presented with the special symbol that marked the beginning of their professional lives.

“The Earth Ring ceremony is a relatively old ceremony within the Canadian geosciences context and you are following a long line of tradition in getting this ring,” said Dr. Elliott Burden as he brought greetings on behalf of the department. “As you launch forth into a professional career as an earth scientist, I hope this career takes you all over the world. With any luck one of you may even end up on Mars or some other planet doing what we do best … exploring, in the wildest and most wonderful places in the cosmos.”

Guest speaker for the event, Peter Dimmell, a senior exploration geologist in Newfoundland and Labrador, told the graduating students that the world was their limit.

“I think the most exciting thing I find in our business is the way you get to do different things,” he said. “Make sure you find something that challenges you and something you look forward to every morning when you get up. Here I’ve been in the business 40 years and I’m still learning things every day.”

Hugh Miller, a former Earth Sciences professor recently retired from Memorial University, said this was the most exciting time to be starting a career in this profession.

“All of the stars are aligning,” he said. “Oil prices and commodity prices are going through the roof. Many of us boomers are ready to retire and in the 1990s there were very few geologists graduating. So you are going out into a very exciting world that’s geared up to find more and more commodities.

"There used to be an old saying, ‘I joined the Navy to see the world and all I saw was the sea,’” he added. “Well you’re going to join the geology profession to see the world, and you’ll really see it.”

The 2008 Earth Ring recipients include Jessica Goodyear, Craig Hunt, Stephanie Johnson, Ryan Laidley, Matthew MacInnis, Gregory Nash, Tiffany Piercey,Dana Rebello, David Walsh, and Heather Willis.