Research Interests

My research interests center on the integration of paleontology with sequence stratigraphy. This largely unexplored area encompasses how sequence stratigraphic artifacts bias the fossil record, how the geologic processes that drive stratigraphic cyclicity may also drive biological changes, and how sequence architecture can be exploited to provide effective ways of sampling the fossil record.

Currently, my primary research interest is in the analysis of regional paleoecological reorganizations, such as biotic invasions, that is, the large-scale immigration of exotic species. Such invasions are currently in the news, given the spectacular success of such invading species as the "Killer Algae" in the Mediterranean, Zebra Mussels in the Great Lakes, and fire ants and kudzu here in the southeast U.S. An unresolved question about biotic invasions is what their long-term biotic effects are. Mark Patzkowsky and I are investigating how alpha (within habitat), beta (between habitat), and gamma (within region) diversity change during the course of a biotic invasion, the so-called Richmondian invasion in the Upper Ordovician of the eastern United States. We are using a sequence stratigraphic framework to guide our paleoecological sampling such that these samples are collected from correlatable packages of rock defined by depositional sequences and from a consistent set of depositional environments, to be able to focus on within-habitat paleoecological changes. Current graduate students are also exploring other previously untapped areas regarding change in regional ecosystems and methods for analyzing these changes.

I am also continuing to develop sequence stratigraphic numerical models of the fossil record with an aim towards understanding how long-term processes of sediment accumulation distort the fossil record and how those distortions can be recognized and corrected. I have previously focused on how clusters of first and last occurrences can be generated as artifacts at sequence boundaries and major flooding surfaces, and how sequence architecture controls range offset, the difference in time between the first or last occurrence of a fossil in an outcrop and its actual time of origination or extinction. More recently, I have developed methods of calibrating these models based on paleoecological sampling and ordination methods, and in using these calibrations to develop improved methods of placing confidence limits on times of origination and extinction.

With my graduate students, I have been exploring how sequence stratigraphic architecture can modify patterns of morphological evolution. We have also been investigating how ecological ordination can be used to remove facies bias from the interpretation of morphological patterns of evolution. Other graduate students are using sequence stratigraphic analysis to better understand the context of significant fossil deposits, such as the depositional environment of some of the oldest known fossil fish in the Middle Ordovician Harding Sandstone of Colorado.

Miller, A.I., S.M. Holland, D.L. Meyer, and B.F. Dattilo, 2001. The use of faunal gradient analysis for intraregional correlation and assessment of sea-floor topography in the type Cincinnatian. Journal of Geology, v. 109, p. 603-614.

Holland, S.M., 2001. The detection and importance of subtle biofacies in monotonous lithofacies: the Upper Ordovician Kope Formation of the Cincinnati, Ohio region. Palaios, v. 16, p. 205-217.

Alroy, J., C.R. Marshall, R.K. Bambach, K. Bezusko, D. Carlson, M. Foote, F.T. Fürsich, T.A. Hansen, S.M. Holland, L.C. Ivany, D. Jablonski, D.K. Jacobs, M.A. Kosnik, S. Lidgard, S. Low, A.I. Miller, P.M. Novack-Gottshall, T. Olszewski, M.E. Patzkowsky, D.M. Raup, K. Roy, J.J. Sepkoski, Jr., M.G. Sommers, P.J. Wagner, III, and A. Webber, 2001. Effects of sampling standardization on estimates of Phanerozoic marine diversification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v. 98, p. 6261-6266.

Holland, S.M., 2000, The quality of the fossil record: a sequence stratigraphic perspective. In D.H. Erwin and S.L. Wing, eds., Deep Time: Paleobiology’s Perspective. Lawrence, Kansas: The Paleontological Society, p. 148-168. Holland, S.M., D.L. Meyer, and A.I. Miller, 2000. High-resolution correlation in apparently monotonous rocks: Upper Ordovician Kope Formation, Cincinnati Arch. Palaios, v. 15, p. 73-80.

Holland, S.M., 1999. The New Stratigraphy and its promise for paleobiology. Paleobiology, v. 25, p. 409-416.

Patzkowsky, M.E., and S.M. Holland, 1999, Biofacies replacement in a sequence stratigraphic framework: Middle and Upper Ordovician of the Nashville Dome, Tennessee, USA. Palaios, v. 14, p. 301-323.

Holland, S.M., and M.E. Patzkowsky, 1999. Models for simulating the fossil record. Geology, v. 27, p. 491-494.