With his twin brother John R. Allen, who worked as a petroleum geologist for BHP Billiton, he wrote the book Basin Analysis, which went through three editions (1990, 2005, and 2013).
[1] The book was an important pioneering effort in the analysis of sedimentary basins and, for several decades, introduced students to connections between sedimentology, geodynamics, and climate.
The research involved constructing maps of recent sediment routing systems on continental scales, compiling tectonic and geodetic datasets, and combining data and theory in numerical models.
The conference was a multi-disciplinary gathering of over 100 scientists for understanding how tectonics and Earth's surface processes interact, especially the coupling of mantle dynamics and geological landscape evolution.
[5] At the 2013 annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), Allen gave a talk on a particular model of a sediment routing system from the Eocene of the Pyrenees.