Personal Details:
Name: Dr. Peter D. Clift
Institute / Company: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Department: Department of Geology and Geophysics
Position: Associate Scientist
Tel: +1 508 289 3437
Email:
Website: www.whoi.edu/pclift/PChomepage.html

Research Details:
Keywords: Tectonics, Subductions, Erosion, Submarine Fans.

Description: I am a marine sedimentary geologist with a focus on the processes operating at convergent and collisional plate margins. Convergent margins are more tectonically complex and less well documented than mid ocean ridges, especially where a plate margin involves continental crust, whose mechanical and thermal behavior is less readily modeled than oceanic lithosphere. However, convergent margins are usually sites of significant sediment accummulation that can act as a tape recorder of the margin dynamics over long periods of geologic time. Decoding this record is the object of my work. As well as reconstructing tectonic activity the stratigraphic record can be used to examine the significant impact that solid earth tectonic processes have on the development of the climate system and circulation in the ocean basins. Quantifying the interactions of the solid earth with the oceans and atmosphere is in its infancy, although some of the major problems involving the effects of ocean gateway closure and mountain uplift are now beginning to be defined. Recently my work has been directed at examining the nature of tectonic-climate interactions in South and East Asia.