The BYU team snorkeled at Jolter's Cay off Andros Island in the Bahamas, where carbonate rocks are being formed.

The shoals at Jolter's Cay are covered with ooids, spherical white sands that are really carbonate grains formed by the rippling waves and the tides. Once those sand grains get buried deep enough, the sediment can become rock and serve as a reservoir.

Geologists call it a "carbonate factory."

"There are ripples forever, as far as the eye can see, for 15 miles," said Ashley Dalrymple, a senior from Glendora, Calif. "To see that current and understand the energy it takes to make things like that was amazing."

Dangerfield said seeing the carbonate factory alive and running was invaluable.

"If you know what they look like before they're liquefied and turned into rock and you've seen the different stages, it can help you make decisions once you're faced with an outcrop of carbonate rock, looking for oil."

The students paid about $600 to go on the trip. The other half of the cost was picked up by the W.K. Hamblin Global Geology fund, founded by a former BYU professor who wanted students to experience the world's best geological sites.

The students also used the university's new 3-D visualization lab. The lab allows students to use a computer and 3-D glasses to explore massive blocks of subsurface, where they can observe fault planes and other dramatic geological phenomenon.

"It's just a fantastic tool in interpreting and exploring for oil and gas," said BYU carbonate petrologist Scott Ritter, who led the field trip.

Between the classroom, the 3-D lab and the summer vacations in the field, BYU students learn how to sniff out new pockets of oil, Morris said.

"There's an old saying in the oil and gas exploration business that oil is found not by any mechanical means but by new ideas, that it's found in the minds of geologists."

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com