Dr. Peter Clift Wins Prestigious Lyell Medal

BATON ROUGE- LSU Department of Geology & Geophysics Charles T. McCord Endowed Professor Peter Clift has been awarded the 2023 Lyell Medal by the Geological Society of London. The Geological Society of London is based in Piccadilly, London and is one of the foremost professional organizations in geoscience worldwide. Dr. Clift is one of 147 awardees since 1876. On receiving this award, Clift says, “It feels satisfying and affirming to the level of dedication I have towards my work. The Geological Society of London was the first professional society I ever joined when I was a second-year undergraduate, and I have a strong personal attachment both to the Society and getting the top award in sedimentary geology. I consider this a great honor and means a great deal to me.”

Clift is a marine geologist and geophysicist whose research focuses on the sedimentary and tectonic evolution of active and collisional plate margins, with a particular interest in the role that erosion and weathering have in controlling long term development of global climate and how South and Southeast Asia have influenced the climate system. Dr. Clift has over 280 peer-reviewed papers and over 21,800 citations.

The Geology Society of London described Dr. Clift as being “held in high regard for the breadth of his research, his international leadership in developing and leading community and ship-based research by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and for his contribution to both undergraduate and post-graduate teaching as well as his outreach initiatives.”

Dr. Clift considers his time as co-chief scientist on an IODP expedition in the Indian Ocean back in 2015 as one of the biggest accomplishments of his career, with work from that and his seven other IODP expeditions contributing to this recent honor.

“The award makes me think more clearly about what is important to the community and what research themes I should be pursuing with the skill set that I have,” explained Clift. “I'd certainly like to use the results of my research to improve my teaching of graduate and undergraduate students. Exposing them to the best current research seems like a good way to motivate people.”

Dr. Darrell Henry, Interim Chair of the LSU Department of Geology & Geophysics, says that “The awarding of the Lyell Medal to Professor Peter Clift is a great honor for him, and this reflects the overall quality of the faculty as a whole. We are happy for Prof. Clift and celebrate this honor with him.”

Clift grew up north of London, where he attended England’s oldest Catholic school. He earned both a BA and a MA in geology at the University of Oxford before moving to Edinburgh, Scotland, to complete his PhD, which focused on the geology of southern Greece.

Upon graduating, he stayed on at the University of Edinburgh as a postdoctoral research fellow but started working on marine geology, focusing on the Tonga area of the Southwest Pacific. In 1993, Clift moved to the U.S. to work for Texas A&M University on the operation of the drilling ship on which he has now sailed eight times.

Then in 1995, he moved to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Mass., where his research career switched to the geology of Asia, both onshore in the Himalayas and offshore in the South China and Arabian seas.

After moving to Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2004, he continued to focus on the evolution of the Asian monsoon and mountain building in Asia and built up strong links with universities in China and Vietnam, while spending a third of his time working at the Universität Bremen in Bremen, Germany.

In 2005, Clift won the Murchison Fund of the Geological Society of London, and he became a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2008.

In 2012, Clift was appointed as the Charles T. McCord Jr Chair in Petroleum Geology at LSU and was honored with being named a 2021 LSU Distinguished Research Master last year.

In addition to teaching and research, Clift serves as editor-in-chief for Geological Magazine, a 157-year-old journal that publishes original scientific research papers on geological topics, as well as attending to numerous other external service duties.

 

Contact: 

Sara A. Martin
Acting Assistant to the Chair and Business Manager
geologymedia@lsu.edu