Geology topics

Sherilyn C. Fritz

Publications and source records attributed to Sherilyn C. Fritz.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2023

A 1.8 million year history of Amazon vegetation

During the Pleistocene, long-term trends in global climate were controlled by orbital cycles leading to high amplitude glacial-interglacial variability. The history of Amazonian vegetation during this period is largely unknown since no continuous record from the lowland basin extends significantly beyond the last glacial stage. Here we present a paleoenvironmental record spanning the last 1800 kyr based on palynological data, biome reconstructions, and biodiversity metrics from a marine sediment core that preserves a continuous archive of sediments from the Amazon River. Tropical rainforests dominated the Amazonian lowlands during the last 1800 ka interchanging with surrounding warm-temperate rainforests and tropical seasonal forests. Between 1800 and 1000 ka, rainforest biomes were present in the Amazon drainage basin, along with extensive riparian wetland vegetation. Tropical rainforest expansion occurred during the relatively warm Marine Isotope Stages 33 and 31 (ca. 1110 to 1060 ka), followed by a contraction of both forests and wetlands until ca. 800 ka. Between 800 and 400 ka, low pollen concentration and low diversity of palynological assemblages renders difficult the interpretation of Amazonian vegetation. A strong synchronicity between vegetation changes and glacial-interglacial global climate cycles was established around 400 ka. After 400 ka, interglacial vegetation was dominated by lowland tropical rainforest in association with warmer temperatures and higher CO 2 . During cooler temperatures and lower CO 2 of glacial stages, tropical seasonal forests expanded, presumably towards eastern Amazonia. While this study provides no evidence supporting a significant expansion of savanna or steppe vegetation within the Amazonian lowlands during glacial periods, there were changes in the rainforest composition in some parts of the basin towards a higher proportion of deciduous elements, pointing to less humid conditions and/or greater seasonality of precipitation. Nevertheless, rainforest persisted during both glacial and interglacial periods. These findings confirm the sensitivity of tropical lowland vegetation to changes in CO 2 , temperature, and moisture availability and the most suitable conditions for tropical rainforests occurred during the warmest stages of the Mid Pleistocene Transition and during the interglacial stages of the past 400 kyr.

Quaternary Science Reviews↗

USGS2021

A multiproxy database of western North American Holocene paleoclimate records

Holocene climate reconstructions are useful for understanding the diverse features and spatial heterogeneity of past and future climate change. Here we present a database of western North American Holocene paleoclimate records. The database gathers paleoclimate time series from 184 terrestrial and marine sites, including 381 individual proxy records. The records span at least 4000 of the last 12 000 years (median duration of 10 725 years) and have been screened for resolution, chronologic control, and climate sensitivity. Records were included that reflect temperature, hydroclimate, or circulation features. The database is shared in the machine readable Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format and includes geochronologic data for generating site-level time-uncertain ensembles. This publicly accessible and curated collection of proxy paleoclimate records will have wide research applications, including, for example, investigations of the primary features of ocean–atmospheric circulation along the eastern margin of the North Pacific and the latitudinal response of climate to orbital changes. The database is available for download at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12863843.v1 (Routson and McKay, 2020).

Earth System Science Data↗

USGS2016

Body size distributions signal a regime shift in a lake ecosystem

Communities of organisms, from mammals to microorganisms, have discontinuous distributions of body size. This pattern of size structuring is a conservative trait of community organization and is a product of processes that occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we assessed whether body size patterns serve as an indicator of a threshold between alternative regimes. Over the past 7000 years, the biological communities of Foy Lake (Montana, USA) have undergone a major regime shift owing to climate change. We used a palaeoecological record of diatom communities to estimate diatom sizes, and then analysed the discontinuous distribution of organism sizes over time. We used Bayesian classification and regression tree models to determine that all time intervals exhibited aggregations of sizes separated by gaps in the distribution and found a significant change in diatom body size distributions approximately 150 years before the identified ecosystem regime shift. We suggest that discontinuity analysis is a useful addition to the suite of tools for the detection of early warning signals of regime shifts.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B↗

USGS2014

Prolonged instability prior to a regime shift

Regime shifts are generally defined as the point of ‘abrupt’ change in the state of a system. However, a seemingly abrupt transition can be the product of a system reorganization that has been ongoing much longer than is evident in statistical analysis of a single component of the system. Using both univariate and multivariate statistical methods, we tested a long-term high-resolution paleoecological dataset with a known change in species assemblage for a regime shift. Analysis of this dataset with Fisher Information and multivariate time series modeling showed that there was a∼2000 year period of instability prior to the regime shift. This period of instability and the subsequent regime shift coincide with regional climate change, indicating that the system is undergoing extrinsic forcing. Paleoecological records offer a unique opportunity to test tools for the detection of thresholds and stable-states, and thus to examine the long-term stability of ecosystems over periods of multiple millennia.

PLoS ONE↗

USGS2012

Holocene seasonal variability inferred from multiple proxy records from Crevice Lake, Yellowstone National Park, USA

A 9400-yr-old record from Crevice Lake, a semi-closed alkaline lake in northern Yellowstone National Park, was analyzed for pollen, charcoal, geochemistry, mineralogy, diatoms, and stable isotopes to develop a nuanced understanding of Holocene environmental history in a region of northern Rocky Mountains that receives both summer and winter precipitation. The limited surface area, conical bathymetry, and deep water (> 31 m) of Crevice Lake create oxygen-deficient conditions in the hypolimnion and preserve annually laminated sediment (varves) for much of the record. Pollen data indicate that the watershed supported a closed Pinus -dominated forest and low fire frequency prior to 8200 cal yr BP, followed by open parkland until 2600 cal yr BP, and open mixed-conifer forest thereafter. Fire activity shifted from infrequent stand-replacing fires initially to frequent surface fires in the middle Holocene and stand-replacing events in recent centuries. Low values of δ 18 O suggest high winter precipitation in the early Holocene, followed by steadily drier conditions after 8500 cal yr BP. Carbonate-rich sediments before 5000 cal yr BP imply warmer summer conditions than after 5000 cal yr BP. High values of molybdenum (Mo), uranium (U), and sulfur (S) indicate anoxic bottom-waters before 8000 cal yr BP, between 4400 and 3900 cal yr BP, and after 2400 cal yr BP. The diatom record indicates extensive water-column mixing in spring and early summer through much of the Holocene, but a period between 2200 and 800 cal yr BP had strong summer stratification, phosphate limitation, and oxygen-deficient bottom waters. Together, the proxy data suggest wet winters, protracted springs, and warm effectively wet summers in the early Holocene and less snowpack, cool springs, warm dry summers in the middle Holocene. In the late Holocene, the region and lake experienced extreme changes in winter, spring, and summer conditions, with particularly short springs and dry summers and winters during the Roman Warm Period (~ 2000 cal yr BP) and Medieval Climate Anomaly (1200–800 cal yr BP). Long springs and mild summers occurred during the Little Ice Age, and these conditions persist to the present. Although the proxy data indicate effectively wet summer conditions in the early Holocene and drier conditions in the middle and late Holocene, none point specifically to changes in summer precipitation as the cause. Instead, summer conditions were governed by multi-seasonal controls on effective moisture that operated over multiple time scales.

Montana↗