Faculty / Staff Name

Faculty / Piret Plink-Björklund

Associate Professor
Department of Geology and Geological Engineering

Education

• Ph.D. in Geology, December 1998, Göteborg University, Sweden
• Fil.Lic. in Geology, May 1996, Göteborg University, Sweden
• M.Sc. in Geology, June 1993, Tartu University, Estonia
• B.Sc. in Geology, 1993, Tartu University, Estonia

Professional experience

2006-Present Associate Professor Colorado School of Mines, USA
2005-2006 Swedish Research Council CAREER award Associate Professor at Göthenburg University, Sweden
2003-2004 Swedish Research Council CAREER award Research Assistant Professor at Göteborg University, Sweden
2002 fall Post-doctoral researcher sponsored by The Swedish Institute at Göteborg University, Sweden
2002 spring Post-doctoral researcher sponsored by the WOLF Consortium at Göteborg University, Sweden and University of Wyoming, USA
2001 fall Post-doctoral researcher sponsored by the Swedish Research Council at Göteborg University, Sweden
1999-2001 Post-doctoral researcher sponsored by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation and Higher Education at University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA
1995-1999 Visiting scholar at University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA
1995-1998 Visiting scholar at Statoil Research Centre, Trondheim, Norway
1993/1994 Visiting scholar at University of Göteborg, Sweden
1991-1993 Research assistant at Estonian Academy of Sciences, Tallinn, Estonia

Teaching

Graduate courses

• GEOL 501 Applied Stratigraphy
• GEOL 601 Outcrop-Core Stratigraphy
• GEOL 610 Advanced Sedimentology

Undergraduate courses

• GEOL 314 Stratigraphy

Research goals

The overall goal of my research is to integrate lessons from the preserved sedimentary record with insights from modern process and experimental studies, with the aim to improve our ability to interpret the sedimentary record in an objective way, and to integrate the deep-time perspective of non-stationarity into geomorphology and climate research.

Publications

*student first author

*Wang, J and Plink-Bjorklund, P., 2019, Stratigraphic complexity in fluvial fans: Lower Eocene Green River Formation, Uinta Basin, USA. Basin Analyses. In press

*Ono, K., and Plink‐Björklund, P., 2018. Froude supercritical flow bedforms in deepwater slope channels? Field examples in conglomerates, sandstones and fine‐grained deposits. Sedimentology. DOI: 10.1111/sed.12396.

* Hall W.S., Hitzman, M.W., Kuiper, Y.D., Kylander-Clark, A.R.C., Holm-Denoma, C.S., Moscati, R.J., Plink-Björklund, P., Enders, M.S., 2018. Igneous and detrital zircon U-Pb and Lu-Hf geochronology of the late Meso- to Neoproterozoic northwest Botswana rift: Maximum depositional age and provenance of the Ghanzi Group, Kalahari Copperbelt, Botswana and Namibia. Precambrian Research, 318, 133-155.

Plink‐Björklund, P., 2017. Latitudinal Controls on River Systems: Implications of Precipitation Variability, in Latitudinal Controls on Stratigraphic Models and Sedimentary Concepts, Fraticelli (ed.). SEPM Special Publication 108. DOI: 108. 10.2110/sepmsp.108.05.

*Laugier, J.J., Plink‐Björklund, P., 2016, Defining the shelf edge and the three‐dimensional shelf edge to slope facies variability in shelf‐edge deltas, Sedimentology 63 (5), 1280-1320. DOI: 10.1111/sed.12263

Plink-Björklund, P., 2015, Morphodynamics of rivers strongly affected by monsoon precipitation: Depositional style and forcing factors, Invited review, Sedimentary Geology 323, 110-147. doi:10.1016/j.sedgeo.2015.04.004

*Grundvåg, S.A., Johannessen, E.P., Helland-Hansen, W., and Plink-Bjorklund, P., 2014 Depositional architecture and evolution of stacked 1 basin-floor fans in the Eocene Central Basin of Spitsbergen, Sedimentology, 61, 535–569.

Plink-Björklund, P., Birgeneier, L., Jones, E., 2014. Extremely bad early Eocene weather: evidence for extreme precipitation from river deposits. CBEP Climatic and Biotic Events of the Paleogene 2014, Ferrara. http://dx.doi.org/10.3301/ROL.2014.107öö.

*Al-Ramadan, K., Morad, S. and Plink-Björklund, P., 2013, Distribution of diagenetic alterations in relationship to depositional facies and sequence stratigraphy of wave- and tide-dominated siliciclastic shoreline complex: Upper Cretaceous Chimney Rock Sandstones, Wyoming and Utah, USA. In M. Ketzer and S. Morad (editors), Linking Diagenesis to Sequence Stratigraphy of Sedimentary Rocks. IAS Special Publication 45, Blackwell Science, 271-296.

*Mansurbeg, H., Morad, S., Plink-Björklund, P. and El-ghali, M., 2013, Diagenetic alterations related to falling stage and lowstand systems tracts of shelf, slope and basin floor sandstones (Eocene Central Basin, Spitsbergen). In M. Ketzer and S. Morad (editors), Linking Diagenesis to Sequence Stratigraphy of Sedimentary Rocks. IAS Special Publication 45, Blackwell Science, 353-378.

*McDowell, B., and Plink-Bjorklund, P., 2013, Reservoir Geometries and Facies Associations of Fluvial Tight-Gas Sands, Williams Fork Formation, Rifle Gap, Colorado, Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal, doi:10.1190/URTEC2013-261

*Schmandt, D., Broughton, D., Hitzman, M.W., Plink-Bjorklund, P., Edwards, D., and Humphrey, J., 2013, The Kamoa Copper Deposit, Democratic Republic of Congo: Stratigraphy, Diagenetic and Hydrothermal Alteration, and Mineralization, Economic Geology, 108, 1301-1324, doi:10.2113/econgeo.108.6.1301

Plink-Bjorklund, P., 2012, Effects of tides on deltaic deposition: Causes and responses, Sedimentary Geology, Vol. 279, 107-133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sedgeo.2011.07.006

Buatois, L., Santiago, N., Herrera, M., Plink-Björklund, P., Steel, R., Espin, M., and Parra, K., 2012, Sedimentological and ichnological signatures of changes in wave, river, and tidal influence along a Neogene tropical deltaic shoreline, eastern Venezuela, Sedimentology, Vol 59, 1568-1612. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3091.2011.01317.x

Steel, R., Plink-Bjorklund, P., Aschoff, J., 2012, Tidal deposits of the Western Interior Seaway, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, USA, R.A. Davis, Jr. and R.W. Dalrymple (eds.), Principles of Tidal Sedimentology, 437 DOI 10.1007/978-94- 007-0123- 6_17

Current projects

see research website

• RioMAR Consortium – a co-operative CSM-UT Austin industrial multi-disciplinary research program on source to sink sediment transport and facies tracts that linksancient, modern and experimental datasets
• Global analyses of river hydrology and floods, and their link to hydroclimate
• Discharge variability and its effect on sediment transport and signal propagation in modern and ancient rivers
• Modern and ancient fluvial fans, their sedimentary characteristics, scaling relationships and link to hydroclimate
• Basin floor fans: testing new hypothesis on channelization and flow regime
• Paleogene paleoclimate and climate thresholds
• Hydroclimate variability and thresholds
• Tectonic and sedimentologic history of the Devonian Baltic Basin