BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA V o l . 34, p p . 499-soe September 30, 1923 GLACIAL LAKE PROBLEMS 1 BY GEORGE H . CHADWICK (Presented before the Society December SO, 1922) CONTENTS Page Lake Wayne and Lake Vanuxem......................................................................... 499 Lake Lundy (?) outlet............................................................................................ 501 Restoration of Lake Amsterdam............................................................................ 501 Eastw ard reach of Lake A rkona.........................................................................502 Westward reach of Lake Newberry.................................................................... 502 A new Genesee la k e................................................................................................. 503 Hudson Valley lakes............................................................................. ................... 503 Lake Vermont and Lake Emmons........................................................................ 503 The Algonquin lakes.................................................................................................. 504 Correlation ch art........................................................................................................ 505 Cattaraugus lakes......................................................................................................505 Some preglacial rivers.............................................................................................. 505 L a k e W a y n e a n d L a k e V a n u x e m Year by year the story of the Laurentian glacial lakes grows more complicated. The steadily falling waters of our youthful innocence are being replaced by a pulsating rise and fall due to rhythmic oscillations of the ice-front. One of these pulsations was long ago recognized by Fairchild2 in his “free drainage” stage of lowered escape followed by the restoration of “Lake Vanuxem.” Fairchild has frequently predicted that the real history would prove to be more complex than existing knowledge revealed. Leverett and Taylor’s recent exposition3 of the caprices of the ice on the thumb of Michigan instantly involves western and central New York, for the moment the water levels fell below the Grand River outlet they must go out by the Mohawk. The control channels of “Lake Wayne” must be sought at either Batavia or Syracuse. Herein is introduced a new element in the recognized New York lake 1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Society May 1, 1923. 2 Bull. 118, N. Y. State Museum, p. 80; Bull. 127, N. Y. State Museum, pp. 50-59. 3 Mon. LIII, U. S. Geol. Survey, pp. 364-370. (499) Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/34/3/499/3414562/BUL34_3-0499.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 5 0 0 G. H . CHADW ICK----GLACIAL LAKE PROBLEMS succession. Hitherto it had been believed that the first of the Erie Basin waters to gain admission into central New York (the Genesee and Finger Lake valleys) was Lake Warren. In Fairchild’s conception “Lake Vanuxem” stood as the earliest water body with easterly (Mohawk) es­ cape, but he ascribed to Vanuxem no drainage from west of Batavia. Yet, if we correctly understand the relations, the episode of Lake Vanuxem and the “free drainage” interim is the'only known place in the New York succession into which “Lake Wayne” can be fitted. The admission of the Warren waters into central New York, past the Batavia salient, without conspicuous channeling on that salient presented a real problem to Fairchild.4 Practical coincidence of the merging water levels had to be subsumed. But if the Erie waters already flowed east­ ward, the restored Warren level would reach to Syracuse from its initia­ tion and this particular puzzle be eliminated. Bather, the problem is pushed back to Lake Wayne, leaving the apparent absence of channels north of Batavia still a matter of inquiry. Possibly the control point is actually somewhat farther east, near Le Eoy, where there are heavy channels just below the Warren beaches. None of the Le Boy channels appears, however, to fulfill the require­ ments for the long-lived Wayne spillway. They conform to the tem­ porary paths of waters rushing to a new confluence, not to a stabilized outlet. For that we must turn to Syracuse. Here we find at once a splendid channel at the right altitude (about 40 feet below Warren) hitherto unreferred to any fixed water plane. This is the “Gulf” west of Marcellus.5 It is confidently believed that the “Gulf” channel carried the Wayne waters prior to Lake Warren, and that it did not function again subsequent to the Warren flooding. A curious fact concerning the “Gulf” remains, nevertheless. Below its intake it is distinctly depicted by Fairchild as a “two-story” channel (the only one he so represents), with the lower story much narrower than the upper, thus indicating diminished water flow. If this narrower inner channel were cut during the ice readvance following the “free drainage” stage, as seems likely, then the restored level (“second Vanuxem”) would appear to have been robbed of the Erie drainage by readvance also at Batavia (or Le Eoy?). This would mean that while “first” Vanuxem included the Erie flow from Wayne downward to its minimum stand and extinction in “free drainage,” or even through the earlier rising levels of its restoration, there was no “restored Lake Wayne,” but only local waters of the restored (incorrectly “second”) Lake Vanuxem coursing 4 Bull. 127, N. Y. State Museum, pp. 51-52. 5 Bull. 127, N. Y. State Museum, pp. 26-30, pis. 4, 18, 19A. Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/34/3/499/3414562/BUL34_3-0499.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 LAKE WAYNE AND LAKE VANUXEM 5 0 1 through the “Gulf,” while the Erie Basin waters were obstructed at Batavia and thrown back on the Grand River outlet as Lake Warren. This ice advance would obliterate the earlier channels at Batavia, but there is still the old difficulty of getting the Warren level eastward again past this point without a trace. L aktc L undy (? ) Outlet With the Wayne outlet at Marcellus (Syracuse), the fate of the Erie ' Basin waters during the “free drainage” interval remains to be consid­ ered. Eollowing westward (upstream) the capacious channels of this stage, and noting their extensive delta deposits where they cross -the Genesee and similar valleys, one is impressed with the belief that they carried more than local flow. At their upper end, north of Le Roy, the channel is a splendid rock-cut, over a mile long, a hundred feet deep, and & quarter mile wide. Its col appears to have been originally some 20 feet or more under the plane of the neighboring Dana beaches, but to have been somewhat silted up during the Dana stage.6 Back of this broad intake at Port Hill, with present altitude about 680 feet, must have lain a huge lake, stretching to Detroit, hitherto unrecognized as such. Its close correspondence in level suggests that its beaches in the Erie Basin have been confused with those of the long subsequent Lake Dana. Spencer in 18947 described the Lundy beach and once incidentally used the expression “the Lundy lake,” a name which thus seems to have no standing as against the properly proposed and worthy name of Lake Dana, subsequently given by Fairchild to his Geneva beach.8 But should it appear on further study that the Lundy beach correlates with the Fort Hill channel, as is very possible, then both names will stand. Indeed, the Belcoda and other channels on the same meridian may eventually explain other features in the complex of beaches at this general horizon in the Erie Basin. R estoration of L ake A msterdam During the “free drainage” stage the Mohawk Valley was necessarily unblocked at the east, giving passage to Fairchild’s “glacio-Mohawk River.” But Fairchild has shown9 that the east-leading channels of sub­ sequent date from lowering Warren and Dana terminate east of Syracuse e See map, Bull. 127, N. Y. State Museum, pi. 2. 7 Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 47, pp. 207-212. Said to be. 25 to 40 feet out of harmony with JLake Dana, in U. S. Geol. Survey Mon. 42, p. 772. 8 Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 7, 1899, pp. 260-1; Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vol. 10, pp. 56-57. 9 Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 7, 1899, p. 262; compare also 20th Ann. Rept. N. Y. State ■Geologist, pp. 112 et seq;, pi. .16; Bull. .160. N. Y. State Museum, p. 32. Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/34/3/499/3414562/BUL34_3-0499.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 502 G. H. CHADWICK----GLACIAL LAKE PROBLEMS (at Mycenae) considerably above the level of the Rome outlet, or higher than the free drainage channels. The inevitable conclusion is that they discharged into a restored Lake Amsterdam, due to reblocking of the Mohawk at its lower end (Schenectady). It is reasonable that any re- advance of the ice at Syracuse sufficient to restore the Grand River outlet must have been accompanied (or slightly preceded) by a powerful thrust in the Hudson Yalley, of which we here have the confirmation. Appar­ ently this forward shove was felt also (a bit later?) at Batavia, thus sundering Warren and Yanuxem as above intimated. E astward R e a c h of L a k e A rkona More puzzling questions revolve around earlier reexpansions of the ice. Taylor thinks that Lake Arkona invaded central New York before the readvance extinguished it. The position of the overriding Alden moraine in the wider portion of the Genesee Yalley (where the Warren beach is strong but single), and thence eastward to the Seneca Valley, is well above the Warren level and shows that the ice must have there destroyed any Arkona beaches, except far south up the valleys, where they would necessarily be weak. Careful search may. yet reveal these; probable beaches and notches occur, 20 feet above the Warren shore, at and east of Geneseo, but the best record is found in the large 850-foot delta terrace at the mouth of the Mount Morris canyon, which could not have been built in Warren waters, because the Canyon had been cut far back and deepened in the stage of lowered escape preceding Warren.