Peter Flaig Email & Phone Number

I am a clastic sedimentologist. I reconstruct ancient environments by looking at sediments deposited primarily in ancient rivers, on floodplains, on deltas, and in environments near and in the shallow ocean.My research focuses on large outcrop belts in Arctic Alaska, the western United States, and Antarctica that provide a laterally extensive and sometimes three-dimensional view of the Earth. Each layer records an environment or event, and together they preserve a record of environmental change over time. I study how environments change and how mountain building, erosion, sea-level fluctuations, and climate change help drive and preserve these changes. I record facies (rock type), fossils, critter trails, rock properties, stratal geometries, and patterns of sediment deposition. Ultimately, I produce a paleoenvironmental reconstruction for a location, which can be incorporated into the research of other scientists (paleontologists, biologists, climatologists) to help model their systems. Outcrop exposures not only allow us to read and reconstruct Earth history, but hint at what lies beneath us, beyond our view. Many outcrops I study form extensive oil and gas reservoirs or regional aquifers, and outcrops provide analogs.I am a professional photographer. Photography and sedimentology complement each other because the uppermost layers of the Earth are extremely complex. Detailed photography records the interplay between facies, sedimentary structures, and outcrop architectures I find this necessary because my research takes me to many difficult-to-access places. I spent 10 field seasons on the North Slope of Alaska studying near-polar Cretaceous ecosystems and two Austral summers in the Central Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica examining sedimentation across the Permian-Triassic extinction event. I am continuing work on those projects and expanding research into fluvial-deltaic deposits of the Western Cretaceous Interior Seaway in the United States.

Listed skills include Sedimentology, Earth Science, Geology, Field Work, and 14 others.