For the first time in T&T’s cen­tu­ry-old oil in­dus­try, a lo­cal geo­sci­en­tist has copped an in­ter­na­tion­al award for his con­tri­bu­tion to ge­o­log­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion in T&T.

Xavier Moo­nan, who was one of the front­line vol­un­teers in­to re­search at Pi­paro mud vol­cano, said he was hum­bled to have re­ceived the Grover E. Mur­ray Memo­r­i­al Dis­tin­guished Ed­u­ca­tor Award from the Amer­i­can As­so­ci­a­tion of Pe­tro­le­um Ge­ol­o­gists (AAPG).

This is giv­en an­nu­al­ly in recog­ni­tion of “dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to ge­o­log­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion.”

Back in 1968 Hans Ku­gler, Swiss ge­ol­o­gist known lo­cal­ly as the ‘fa­ther of Trinidad Ge­ol­o­gy’ and the com­pil­er of the first com­plete sur­face ge­ol­o­gy map of Trinidad re­ceived the AAPG Hon­orary Mem­ber award.  

“I feel very hum­bled, es­pe­cial­ly know­ing that folks that I con­sid­er leg­ends of the field have re­ceived the same in years be­fore,” he said.

Asked why the award was sig­nif­i­cant, Moo­nan said, “For Trinidad, con­sid­er­ing our  pe­tro­le­um her­itage, we have nev­er had a lo­cal ge­ol­o­gist re­ceive an award on this plat­form from the AAPG—the largest so­ci­ety of pro­fes­sion­al pe­tro­le­um ge­ol­o­gists in the world.”

He added, “The award it­self high­lights that the ac­tiv­i­ties and ef­forts to ed­u­cate folks on geo­science even when un­der­tak­en lo­cal­ly or re­gion­al­ly, is rec­og­nized, ad­mired and will be em­u­lat­ed else­where.”

Moo­nan, whose work as a Se­nior Geo­sci­en­tist at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration, led to the four on­shore gas dis­cov­er­ies an­nounced in 2019 & 2020, said he want­ed to spur more aware­ness for the field of ge­ol­o­gy in T&T.

“I wish for every­one to gain a bet­ter ap­pre­ci­a­tion of our coun­try, our en­vi­ron­ment and oth­er nat­ur­al re­sources,” he said.

He not­ed that many ge­o­log­i­cal won­ders are still un­known to the av­er­age cit­i­zen.

“San Fer­nan­do Hill and the Pitch Lake are be­ing mar­ket­ed but we have many more trea­sures that are not,” he added.

Be­cause of COVID-19, Moo­nan is not able to phys­i­cal­ly col­lect his pres­ti­gious award at the AAPG Con­fer­ence in Den­ver. How­ev­er, he said he will con­tin­ue to do his part in ed­u­cat­ing the cit­i­zen­ry about T&T’s ge­o­log­i­cal won­ders.

More on Moo­nan

Moo­nan holds an MSc. in Struc­tur­al Ge­ol­o­gy with Geo­physics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds, Unit­ed King­dom. He was award­ed a ‘Top Ten Pre­sen­ta­tion’ by AAPG for his pre­sen­ta­tion on the Pe­nal Bar­rack­pore An­ti­cline at AAPG In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence & Ex­hi­bi­tion (ICE) Con­fer­ence in Mi­lan, 2011. 

He served as the Con­ven­er for the 20th Caribbean Ge­o­log­i­cal Con­fer­ence Trinidad 2015, as Pro­gramme Com­mit­tee Trinidad Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for AAPG ICE Carta­ge­na 2013, as Gen­er­al Co-Chair for AAPG Geo­sciences Tech­nol­o­gy Work­shop (GTW) Trinidad 2014, GTW Guyana 2017 and GTW Suri­name 2019 and as Tech­ni­cal Pro­gram Chair of the AAPG South East Caribbean Vir­tu­al Re­search Sym­po­sium in 2020. 

Moo­nan is the Vice Pres­i­dent of the AAPG Latin Amer­i­ca & Caribbean Re­gion.

He is a mem­ber of the Ge­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad & To­ba­go, the Hous­ton Ge­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety and the So­ci­ety of Pe­tro­le­um En­gi­neers.

He lec­tures a range of ge­ol­o­gy cours­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad & To­ba­go and runs field ge­ol­o­gy trips for many vis­it­ing groups in­clud­ing An­ton De Kom Uni­ver­si­ty of Suri­name, Dal­housie Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to.

He is mar­ried to Karuna Moo­nan, a ra­dio an­nounc­er and has a son.