Hi! My friend, Jacob, has a very interesting job on board the JOIDES Resolution and today I am going to tell you a little about him and what he does.

Jacob Virtue, was born in Canada and moved to Tasmania when he was eight years old. Tasmania is an island off the southern coast of Australia. I found it fun to look at a world map and see where Tasmania is. Why don’t you do that, also? He went to college there and earned a degree in geology. This is where he first learned how to make thin sections of rocks. The first step in the process is to use a rock saw to cut a small square piece out of a larger rock. This is then glued to a piece of glass and put on a grinding machine until it is thin enough for light to pass through it. It looks like a piece of tissue paper at this point. It is polished and then given to the petrologists to use. Jacob improved his skills while working on the ship. This is his second cruise on the JR and he did the same type of work on a previous cruise, Expedition 317.

In his spare time, Jacob likes to scuba dive, kayak, and fly helicopters and small planes.