Still in high demand: After nearly three decades in Sudbury, David Wood's unique rock engineering specialty goes from underground to above.

• Author: McKinley, Karen
• Position: NEWS

David Wood was thinking about retirement.

The long-time engineering geologist has had his hand in many projects around the province and even abroad. With more than 30 years in rock mechanics experience, his depth of expertise is keeping him in demand at home and abroad.

But even with projects on the go, he is considering his legacy.

"There are so few people that do what I do in Ontario, I think there's three of us registered to do what is called rock-slope hazard complexity," he said. "I was thinking about retirement, but that would leave two, and there are a lot of important projects, as well as mentoring and thinking about a legacy project, so I feel I can do this for a couple of more years."

Among his wishes is to see a UNESCO geopark in the basin. He is on a committee to petition to have it done sometime in the next few years. There are currently two in Canada: Stonehammer Geopark in St. John, New Brunswick, and Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

"For a geopark to happen there needs to be significant geological heritage, and I think we have that because we are the home of two major meteorite impacts over two billion years," he said. "We have one two billion years ago, which is a long, long time, and one 37 million years ago, which geologically speaking is like last week. I asked where on Earth do you have two major impacts still visible side by side and the answer is few."

The lasting effects of those impacts have given the area many distinctions, he said, from being one of the biggest nickel deposits in the world, to the place where NASA sent astronauts and geologists working on the Apollo moon landings to study rock formations.

There are some financial reasons to keep working, he added. With house renovations underway he said he could use the money, as well as keeping his private business, David F. Wood Consulting, running for the time being.

Wood explained this wasn't a job he strived for; it was something he worked his way into. Growing up in England, he said he was always intrigued by how the land was formed the way it was.

He earned an undergrad degree in physical geology--studying hard rock geology and applied geophysics--at Exeter University and later went back to obtain his master's engineering degree in rock mechanics at the University of London.

When he came to Canada to work for Golder Associates in the mid-1970s, rock engineering was such a specialized field, and so he created a new immigration category for...