He became a geology student at Victoria University of Wellington and in his second year went in January 1961 as a field assistant on a trip lasting almost three months.
The purpose of the trip, with four people, three pack horses, two-way radios, and rifles, was geological mapping of New Zealand's Marlborough Region.
His thesis, supervised by Harold Wellman and Paul P. Vella (1926–2010), which involved Ordovician biostratigraphy and fossil graptolite species, including Isograptus caduceus.
With the support of a Nuffield Traveling Fellowship, awarded in 1979, he was on a leave of absence from the Geological Survey for 15 months studying graptolites at the Natural History Museum, London, and at the University of Cambridge.
For eight years, starting in 1989, he was Chief Paleontologist at the Geological Survey (which was part of the Geophysical Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research).