astronomy

Peter Clift

Peter Clift is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Peter Clift rather than just read about it. In short: Peter Clift is a British marine geologist and geophysicist specializing in the geology of Asia and the western Pacific. He was Charles T.

Key takeaways

Peter Clift belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Peter Clift to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Peter Clift from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Peter Clift is a British marine geologist and geophysicist specializing in the geology of Asia and the western Pacific. He was Charles T. McCord Professor of Petroleum Geology at Louisiana State University from 2012 to 2023, and a Royal Society-Wolfson Fellow at University College, London from 2023. Clift was awarded the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2023, and was elected a Union Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2024.

Scientific Research Clift is a geologist who applies marine geophysical, geochemical and classical geological methods to understand the history of geological basins over the last 50 million years. In particular, he works on understanding the relationships between mountain building in the Himalaya and Tibet Plateau and the intensification of the Asian monsoon. Clift has worked on evolution the Indus River, which he dated to being older than 45 million years. He has proposed that the Indus captured the four major rivers of the Punjab region into its basin after around 5 million years ago. Prior to this time the Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej and Jellum Rivers would have flowed eastwards into the Ganges River, not westwards into the Indus. A project funded by the Leverhulme Trust allowed his to show that the reorganisation of rivers in SW Asia greatly predated the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization. He showed that a river, possibly the mythical Sarasvati River used to flow from the region of Chandigarh in Punjab (India) but ceased to flow after 4500 years ago, possibly due to weakening of the monsoon. Clift has also used the sediment records of the South China Sea to propose a start to the monsoon after 24 million years ago, compared to the more popular 8 million year age. He is involved with efforts to have the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program collect samples in the Asian marginal seas for monsoon studies. Clift also works with the tectonics and nature of mass recycling in subduction zones. Prior to Louisiana he was Kilgour Professor of Geology at the University of Aberdeen from 2004 to 2012. Clift worked for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a research scientist (1995–2004), was a staff scientist with the Ocean Drilling Program at Texas A&M University (1993–1995) and was a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh (1990–1993) sponsored by BP and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Since 2024, he has been employed by the University of Szczecin.

Education Clift took his bachelor's degree at the University of Oxford, where he was a student at Worcester College. He completed his Ph.D. on the geology of southern Greece in 1990 at University of Edinburgh. In 2014 he was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford.

Personal life Peter Clift grew up in Ware, Hertfordshire where he attended St. Edmund's College. His father, Donald W. Clift, also a native of Ware, worked for BP, including in Beijing, China for five years. His mother Margaret T. Clift (née Feighan) is from Cullyhanna, Northern Ireland.

Awards 2024, Union Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. 2023, Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London 2009, Fellow at the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, Lower Saxony, Germany. 2008, Elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. 2005, Appointed as visiting professor, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou. 2005, Murchison Fund, Geological Society of London, UK 2005–2007, Humboldt Foundation Fellow, University of Bremen, Germany 2004, Visiting lecturer, University of Tokyo, Japan 2003, Visiting lecturer, National Central University and Academia Sinica, Taiwan 2001, Swiney Trust invited visiting lecturer, University of Edinburgh, UK

Major recent publications He has published numerous scientific papers over the course of his career. Among his most cited papers are:

Clift, P.D. and Vannucchi, P., 2004. Controls on tectonic accretion versus erosion in subduction zones: Implications for the origin and recycling of the continental crust. Reviews of Geophysics, 42, RG2001, doi:10.1029/2003RG000127. Robertson AHF, Clift PD, Degnan PJ, et al., "Paleogeographic And Paleotectonic Evolution Of The Eastern Mediterranean Neotethys" Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 87 (1-4): 289-343 October 1991, doi:10.1016/0031-0182(91)90140-M. Larsen HC, Saunders AD, Clift PD, et al., "Seven Million Years Of Glaciation In Greenland" Science 264 (5161): 952-955 13 May 1994, doi:10.1126/science.264.5161.952. Clift, P.D. and Blusztajn, J., 2005. Reorganization of the western Himalayan river system after five million years ago. Nature, 438, 1001–1003, doi:10.1038/nature04379.

External links Peter Clift's web page Dr. Peter Clift | LSU Department of Geology & Geophysics

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Peter Clift

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Peter Clift claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Peter Clift before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Peter Clift ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Peter Clift

In research: Peter Clift appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Peter Clift in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Peter Clift is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1966 births, 21st-century British geologists, Academic staff of the University of Tokyo, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Peter Clift outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Peter Clift in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Peter Clift means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Peter Clift out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Peter Clift in simple terms?

Peter Clift is a British marine geologist and geophysicist specializing in the geology of Asia and the western Pacific. He was Charles T.

Why does Peter Clift matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Peter Clift?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Peter Clift.