George Holmes University Professor Profile Image
George Holmes University Professor Earth and Atmospheric Sciences sfritz2@unl.edu 302 Bessey Hall

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My interests lie at the interface of geological, ecological, and atmospheric sciences, and my research reconstructs long-term environmental change, primarily by using the fossil diatom record from lakes to reconstruct landscape evolution and patterns of climate variation. Much of my research has focused on the Quaternary of western North America and tropical South America, but I have also worked in Southeast Asia, Greenland, and northwestern Europe. Presently, I am one of the lead investigators of the Trans-Amazon Drilling Project, under the auspices of the International Continental Drilling Program, which brings together dozens of scientists from Brazil, the US, and Europe to study the role of climatic and geologic history in the Cenozoic evolution of biodiversity in tropical South America.

Selected Publications

(*=Fritz lab student or postdoc)

  • *Benito, X., S.C. Fritz, M. Steinitz-Kannan, P. Tapia, M. Kelly, T. Lowell. 2018. Geo-climatic factors drive diatom community responses in tropical South American freshwaters. Journal of Ecology 106: 1660-1672, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.12934
  • *Spanbauer, T.L., S.C. Fritz, P.A. Baker, 2018. Punctuated change in the morphology of an endemic diatom from Lake Titicaca. Paleobiology 44: 89-100, doi: 10.1017/pab.2017.27
  • Fritz, S.C. and N.J. Anderson, 2013. The relative influences of climate and catchment processes on Holocene lake development in glaciated regions. Journal of Paleolimnology 49: 349-362, DOI: 10.1007/s10933-013-9684-z
  • Fritz, S.C., P.A. Baker, G.O. Seltzer, A. Ballantyne, P. Tapia, H. Cheng, R.L. Edwards, 2007, Quaternary glaciation and hydrologic variation in the South American tropics as reconstructed from the Lake Titicaca drilling project, Quaternary Research, 68: 410-420.
  • *Jacobs, K.C, S.C. Fritz, J.B. Swinehart, 2007, Lacustrine evidence for moisture changes in the Nebraska Sand Hills during Marine Isotope Stage 3, Quaternary Research 67: 246-254.
  • Fritz, S.C., S. Juggins, and D.R. Engstrom, 2004, Patterns of early lake evolution in boreal landscapes: a comparison of stratigraphic inferences with a modern chronosequence in Glacier Bay, Alaska, The Holocene 14: 828-840.