Yap traversed the entire island collecting rocks. But during his four years of undergraduate study, he found that geological research was pretty much exhausted on the land of Taiwan, and to get ahead he would have to go to sea-researching the undersea geology around the island.
為了採集礦石，葉高華可說是「全台走透透」，大學 4 年下來，葉高華發現台灣本島上的地質研究幾乎已被蒐羅殆盡，自己要有所突破就得「下海」──研究台灣週遭海底的地質。