AAPG Honors Flemings With Berg Award

December 8, 2024

Jackson School of Geosciences Professor Peter Flemings is the recipient of the 2024 Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award, a top honor bestowed by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, a worldwide professional association.

During his career, Flemings has worked to apply his academic research to bring about real-world breakthroughs. His work analyzing how pressure within Earth’s crust is controlled by geology and fluid flow, for example, shaped how oil companies now safely search for hydrocarbons. His research was fundamental in understanding the geologic conditions that contributed to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. For two months after the oil spill, Flemings served as a member of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s BP Macondo Well Integrity Team in Houston.

Flemings’ most recent project involves retrieving samples of methane hydrates from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico’s seafloor. He is leading the Department of Energy-funded project to study the energy-rich substance that makes up as much as 20% of the world’s mobile carbon. The Berg Award recognizes a singular achievement in petroleum geoscience research. Flemings is the fifth scientist affiliated with the Jackson School to receive it.

Demian Saffer, the director of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, said that Flemings had earned his place in the hall of fame of petroleum geophysicists.

“Peter has made foundational contributions to the science of fluid flow in the subsurface, and pioneered methods that have profoundly changed our understanding of forces shaping sedimentary basins and continental margins. On a practical level, his work has modernized how we explore petroleum systems,” Saffer said.

“In many ways, this award is about more than any one achievement. It’s about Peter’s ability to straddle between the fundamental and the practical.”