Geodesy & Geomatics Engineering

The opportunities that can arise by joining us here at UNB GGE are nothing shy of extraordinary. With that being said, we introduce our next Alumni Spotlight, Nick Bardsley! Nick’s work while searching for MH370 is a perfect example of that.

“The strong international reputation of UNB GGE opened up a world of opportunity,” says our 2008 graduate, Nick Bardsley. Upon graduation, Nick had been offered many land and marine survey roles throughout Canada and the world. By choosing to work in Australia as a hydrographic surveyor and living in Perth ever since, Nick has had many unique work experiences.

Nick explains his most rewarding survey project was looking for Malaysia Airline Flight 370 that disappeared on March 8, 2014. “Although we did not find MH370 is was a technically and personally rewarding project I will never forget,” says Nick.

Nick was the vessel party chief for the early seabed mapping portion of the search. “No human had ever surveyed the seafloor out there, so we first had to run surface multibeam, mapping the seabed to allow safe passage for towed and autonomous survey vehicles, which could detect aircraft debris.” Leaving Perth, it was a 6-day sail to the project site with the next closest destination to this area being Durban, South Africa, which would have taken 7 days by boat, Nick stated.

After his time working with surface mapping, Nick became the Project Manager of the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The AUV searched the “advanced terrain of subsea canyons, mountains and volcanos over 4 kilometres underwater.”

Here at UNB GGE we have several courses related to hydrography such as Ocean Mapping, Oceanography, Tides and Water Levels, Marine Geology and Geophysics, and Advanced Topics in Ocean Mapping.

Learn more about ocean mapping at UNB.