Recent from talks
Finger Lakes
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Finger Lakes
The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located in an area called the Finger Lakes region in New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional edge of the Northern Allegheny Plateau, known as the Finger Lakes Uplands and Gorges ecoregion, and the Ontario Lowlands ecoregion of the Great Lakes Lowlands.
The geological term finger lake refers to a long, narrow lake in an overdeepened glacial valley, while the proper name Finger Lakes goes back to the late 19th century. Cayuga and Seneca Lakes are among the deepest in the United States, measuring 435 and 618 feet (133 and 188 m), respectively, with bottoms well below sea level. Though none of the lakes' widths exceed 3.5 miles (5.6 km), Seneca Lake is 38.1 miles (61.3 km) long, and at 66.9 square miles (173 km2) is the largest in total area.
The origin of the name Finger Lakes is uncertain. Currently, the oldest known published use of finger lakes for this group of 11 lakes is in a United States Geological Survey paper by Thomas Chamberlin that was published in 1883. This paper was later cited and Finger Lakes formally used as a proper name by R. S. Tarr in a Geological Society of America paper published in 1893. Older usage of Finger Lakes in either maps, papers, reports, or any other documents remains to be verified.
The eleven Finger Lakes, from west to east, are:
Seneca, Cayuga, Skaneateles, Owasco, Keuka, and Canandaigua are considered the major Finger Lakes, while Conesus, Hemlock, Canadice, Honeoye, and Otisco are considered the minor Finger Lakes.
Numerous nearby lakes have been excluded from the traditional list of the lakes. All eleven are part of the Lake Ontario drainage basin. Waneta and Lamoka lakes, located southeast of Keuka Lake, are sometimes called the "fingernail" lakes, but are part of the Susquehanna River watershed, draining into a tributary of the Chemung River. Silver Lake, which has the same geological characteristics as the Finger Lakes and is sometimes regarded as the "12th" Finger Lake, has traditionally been excluded due to its distance from the others, west of the Genesee River. Onondaga Lake and Cazenovia Lake to the east have similarly been excluded. Oneida Lake, to the northeast of Syracuse, is sometimes included as the "thumb", although it is shallow and somewhat different in character from the rest.
These glacial finger lakes originated as a series of northward-flowing streams. Around two million years ago, the area was glaciated by the first of many continental glaciers as the Laurentide Ice Sheet moved southward from the Hudson Bay area. During the glacial maximums, subglacial meltwater and glacial ice widened, deepened, and accentuated the existing river valleys to form subglacial tunnel valleys. Glacial debris, possibly terminal moraine left behind by the receding ice, acted as dams, allowing lakes to form. Despite the deep erosion of the valleys, the surrounding uplands show little evidence of glaciation, suggesting the ice was thin, or at least unable to cause much erosion at higher elevations. The deep cutting by glacial erosion left some tributaries hanging high above the lakes—both Seneca and Cayuga have tributaries hanging as much as 120 m (390 ft) above the valley floors. Based on sediment cores, seismic stratigraphy, and radiocarbon dates, the finger lakes became ice-free about 14,400 BP calendar. At this time scouring by ice and meltwater ceased and these lakes filled initially with proglacial lake rhythmites. The deposition of proglacial lake rhythmites occurred between 14,400 and 13,900 BP calendar. After the margins of the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated into the Ontario lowlands after 13,900 BP calendar, the accumulation, at first, of massive gray clays followed by dark gray to black, laminated, organic-rich muds, accumulated without interruption until present within the Finger Lakes.
Detailed studies of Marine Isotope Stage 3 and 4 age sediments exposed at a locality called the Great Gully on the eastern flank of the Cayuga Lake, near Union Springs, New York, record the presence of a paleolake that existed prior to Cayuga Lake. This paleolake, which is called Glacial Lake Nanette, was a proglacial lake that filled the bedrock valley currently occupied by Cayuga Lake from about 50,000 BP calibrated until it was overridden by a glacial readvance that occurred prior to 30,000 BP calendar and buried it beneath younger glacial till. This research shows that bedrock valleys, in which the Finger lakes lie, existed prior to the Last Glacial Maximum and developed over multiple glaciations.
Hub AI
Finger Lakes AI simulator
(@Finger Lakes_simulator)
Finger Lakes
The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located in an area called the Finger Lakes region in New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional edge of the Northern Allegheny Plateau, known as the Finger Lakes Uplands and Gorges ecoregion, and the Ontario Lowlands ecoregion of the Great Lakes Lowlands.
The geological term finger lake refers to a long, narrow lake in an overdeepened glacial valley, while the proper name Finger Lakes goes back to the late 19th century. Cayuga and Seneca Lakes are among the deepest in the United States, measuring 435 and 618 feet (133 and 188 m), respectively, with bottoms well below sea level. Though none of the lakes' widths exceed 3.5 miles (5.6 km), Seneca Lake is 38.1 miles (61.3 km) long, and at 66.9 square miles (173 km2) is the largest in total area.
The origin of the name Finger Lakes is uncertain. Currently, the oldest known published use of finger lakes for this group of 11 lakes is in a United States Geological Survey paper by Thomas Chamberlin that was published in 1883. This paper was later cited and Finger Lakes formally used as a proper name by R. S. Tarr in a Geological Society of America paper published in 1893. Older usage of Finger Lakes in either maps, papers, reports, or any other documents remains to be verified.
The eleven Finger Lakes, from west to east, are:
Seneca, Cayuga, Skaneateles, Owasco, Keuka, and Canandaigua are considered the major Finger Lakes, while Conesus, Hemlock, Canadice, Honeoye, and Otisco are considered the minor Finger Lakes.
Numerous nearby lakes have been excluded from the traditional list of the lakes. All eleven are part of the Lake Ontario drainage basin. Waneta and Lamoka lakes, located southeast of Keuka Lake, are sometimes called the "fingernail" lakes, but are part of the Susquehanna River watershed, draining into a tributary of the Chemung River. Silver Lake, which has the same geological characteristics as the Finger Lakes and is sometimes regarded as the "12th" Finger Lake, has traditionally been excluded due to its distance from the others, west of the Genesee River. Onondaga Lake and Cazenovia Lake to the east have similarly been excluded. Oneida Lake, to the northeast of Syracuse, is sometimes included as the "thumb", although it is shallow and somewhat different in character from the rest.
These glacial finger lakes originated as a series of northward-flowing streams. Around two million years ago, the area was glaciated by the first of many continental glaciers as the Laurentide Ice Sheet moved southward from the Hudson Bay area. During the glacial maximums, subglacial meltwater and glacial ice widened, deepened, and accentuated the existing river valleys to form subglacial tunnel valleys. Glacial debris, possibly terminal moraine left behind by the receding ice, acted as dams, allowing lakes to form. Despite the deep erosion of the valleys, the surrounding uplands show little evidence of glaciation, suggesting the ice was thin, or at least unable to cause much erosion at higher elevations. The deep cutting by glacial erosion left some tributaries hanging high above the lakes—both Seneca and Cayuga have tributaries hanging as much as 120 m (390 ft) above the valley floors. Based on sediment cores, seismic stratigraphy, and radiocarbon dates, the finger lakes became ice-free about 14,400 BP calendar. At this time scouring by ice and meltwater ceased and these lakes filled initially with proglacial lake rhythmites. The deposition of proglacial lake rhythmites occurred between 14,400 and 13,900 BP calendar. After the margins of the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated into the Ontario lowlands after 13,900 BP calendar, the accumulation, at first, of massive gray clays followed by dark gray to black, laminated, organic-rich muds, accumulated without interruption until present within the Finger Lakes.
Detailed studies of Marine Isotope Stage 3 and 4 age sediments exposed at a locality called the Great Gully on the eastern flank of the Cayuga Lake, near Union Springs, New York, record the presence of a paleolake that existed prior to Cayuga Lake. This paleolake, which is called Glacial Lake Nanette, was a proglacial lake that filled the bedrock valley currently occupied by Cayuga Lake from about 50,000 BP calibrated until it was overridden by a glacial readvance that occurred prior to 30,000 BP calendar and buried it beneath younger glacial till. This research shows that bedrock valleys, in which the Finger lakes lie, existed prior to the Last Glacial Maximum and developed over multiple glaciations.
Recent media