During this time he met Filipe Folque (1800-1874), an aristocratic military officer and mathematician who supported him with his studies, enabling him to obtain the necessary qualifications to enrol at the tertiary level.

His duties obliged him to cover a large part of the country, inspecting mines, quarries, etc., which allowed him to undertake fieldwork to gather rock and paleontological samples that would later be incorporated into the government's collection.

He began to publish papers on his findings and also on topics such as cartography, general geology, prehistoric anthropology and archaeology.

In 1850 in Buçaco Ribeiro met the English geologist Daniel Sharpe (1806–56), who had studied the geology of Portugal, and helped him with the translation and scientific revision of his publications.

Due to disagreements within the commission, it was dissolved in February 1868, to be converted about one year later in one of the sections of the General Directorate of Geodetic Works under the supervision of Ribeiro.

His enthusiasm for the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods was one factor in taking the 9th International Congress of PreHistorical Anthropology and Archaeology to Lisbon in 1880, two years before his death.

Later the geological map was updated by Nery Delgado who worked with him, and by the Swiss geologist, Léon Paul Choffat, a scientist that Ribeiro had met at that exhibition.