Ancestral Niagara River drainage: Stratigraphie and paleontologie setting PARKER E. CALKIN Department of Geological Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, 4240 Ridge Lea Road, Amherst, New York 14226 CARLTON E. BRETT Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104 ABSTRACT from sites at Goat Island and Whirlpool Park along the Gorge pro- vide insight into the Late Wisconsinan ice retreat and allow the first The modern Niagara River was initiated as a multi-outlet river- zonation and radiocarbon dating of the mollusks within the ancient lake system following the last ice retreat from the area about Niagara River gravels. To the east of the Gorge, excavations for 12,300 yr B.P. This system extended from Early Lake Erie to the new sewage treatment plants at Niagara Falls (STP) and at the base contemporaneously formed Glacial Lake Iroquois in the Ontario of the Lockport spillway (Lockport Gulf Site) have both exposed basin. The last major ice advance and one subsequent glacial oscil- exceptional sections of Late Wisconsinan through Holocene strata, lation associated with the ice retreat are recorded in sequences of including fossiliferous lake sands and peats apparently deposited in glaciolacustrine deposits and till along the present Gorge wall and Lake Tonawanda and Lake Iroquois, respectively. This is the first within older bedrock spillways. Dated wood overlying Iroquois detailed study of the occurrence of Lake Tonawanda fossils and silts and till within the Lockport spillway, east of Niagara, suggest their radiocarbon dating. Preliminary reports of this work were that the multi-outlet (Lake Tonawanda) phase of the drainage presented by Calkin and others (1975) and Calkin and Miller ceased about 10,900 yr B.P. with concentration of the outflow, and (1976). hence major gorge recession, at Lewiston. Radiocarbon analysis of mollusks from river gravels at the top of the Niagara Gorge at Whirlpool Park indicate that cataract recession from Lewiston to L. IROQUOIS STRAND this site of intersection with the much older buried St. Davids Gorge occurred after 9800 yr B.P. Lake Tonawanda persisted near L. WARREN STRANDS the present site of Niagara Falls until about 1,000 yr ago; however, dated mollusks imply that deposition here was interrupted by in- L. WHITTLESEY STRAND tense scouring shortly before 3800 yr B.P., which may have been a response to the closing of the North Bay outlet of the upper Great END MORAINES Lakes and consequent large increase in discharge through Lake Erie. • STRATIGRAPHIC MOLLUSK Mollusks which occur in the ancient Niagara River gravels are l4 well preserved and distinctly zoned. The Lake Tonawanda fauna, and/or C SITE heretofore undescribed, includes about 15 species, all of which are extant in the region. 1 GOAT ISLAND INTRODUCTION 2 WHIRLPOOL PARK The modern Niagara River was initiated with retreat of the Late 3 NIAGARA FALLS SEWAGE Wisconsinan ice sheet and eastward draining of the last pro-glacial lake in the Erie Basin. The newly formed Early Lake Erie then dis- TREATMENT PLANT charged across the emergent Niagara cuesta (escarpment) to Gla- cial Lake Iroquois in the Ontario Basin (Fig. 1). The generalities 4 LOCKPORT SITE and a great many details of the evolution of the Niagara drainage system from a river-lake called "Lake Tonawanda" with five out- 5 LOCKPORT GULF SITE lets through eventual differential enlargement of the main gorge at Lewiston (Niagara Gorge) have been presented and updated suc- 6 WINTER GULF SITE cessively by a number of authors since early studies by James Hall (1842). Study of recent excavations in and near Niagara Falls has led us KILOMETERS to review here some of this work relative to more recent published 0 10 20 30 studies in the area and to present some additional information on 1 1 i i the river history resulting from our field work. In particular, data Figure 1. Explanation. Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 89, p. 1140-1154, 6 figs., 3 tables, August 1978, Doc. no. 80803. 1140 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/89/8/1140/3444147/i0016-7606-89-8-1140.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 ANCESTRAL NIAGARA RIVER DRAINAGE 1141 Figure 1. Surficial geology of northwestern New York showing location of sites mentioned in this paper. Geology ^ LAKE ONTARIO a*ter Mu"er> 1977b. SYNTHESIS OF PREVIOUS WORK prehensive accounts of the development of Niagara River itself are to be found in works of Gilbert (1891), Grabau (1901), Spencer The general sequence of events in the Great Lakes area leading (1907), and particularly by Kindle and Taylor (1913) and Taylor to, or associated with, the formation of the Niagara River and (1933). A brief review of pertinent points from these works is given Gorge are generally well known (Leverett, 1902; Leverett and below with modifications drawn from recent published literature. Taylor, 1915; Hough, 1958, 1963, 1966; Prest, 1970). Com- The Late Wisconsinan glaciation in western New York and Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/89/8/1140/3444147/i0016-7606-89-8-1140.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 1142 CALKIN AND BRETT southern Ontario was marked by at least three successively less ex- Lake Tonawanda waters are thought to have carved spillways tensive advances; the last of these has been correlated with the Port (Kindle and Taylor, 1913) to Glacial Lake Iroquois at Lewiston Huron stadial of Michigan. The Port Huron advance terminated and farther eastward at Lockport, Gasport, Medina, and Holley the preceding Mackinaw Interstadial (Dreimanis and Karrow, (New York), respectively. The main channel of the Lewiston spill- 1972), during which ice may have retreated north and eastward out way system, headed approximately 1,200 to 2,000 m north of the of the Erie to the Ontario Basin (Wall, 1968; Dreimanis, 1969; present American Falls across Johnson Ridge (Fig. 2). Because of Karrow, 1969); in addition, it induced a rise in waters to the Gla- the differential postglacial uplift toward the northeast, the eastern cial Lake Whittlesey level in the Erie-Huron basins. Several outlets successively gave way to those closer to the outflow from radiocarbon dates suggest that this event occurred about 13000 yr Lake Erie on the west. Bottom sediments deposited over the clay B.P. (Dreimanis and Goldthwait, 1973). Oscillatory retreat of the and silt of preceding glacial lakes consisted of fine sands and very Port Huron ice from terminal positions on or near the Paris coarse silts (D'Agostino, 1958); the finer materials apparently Moraine in southern Ontario and the Hamburg Moraine in west- moved through the spillways. ern New York (Fig. 1) has been correlated with six or more lower Taylor (Kindle and Taylor, 1913) has suggested that the cutting lake stands and as many ice marginal positions in the Niagara area of, and major drainage through, the Lake Tonawanda spillways (Chapman and Putnam, 1966; Calkin, 1970). Fairchild (1907) as- east of Lewiston occurred as Niagara waters drained into a low and signed the name "Lake Dana" to the slowly subsiding waters of the short-lived phase of Glacial Lake Iroquois called "Newfane." The Erie Basin immediately preceding emergence of the Niagara Es- amount and timing of cutting in the Lockport spillway (Fig. 1) is carpment and the simultaneous formation of nonglacial, Early considered below in this paper. At Lewiston, New York, weak Lake Erie and Glacial Lake Iroquois in the Ontario Basin. Lake Newfane beaches are about 26 m above the present Lake Ontario Dana, perhaps confined to the northeastern part of the Erie and level. Wood from the Lockport Site (Fig. 1), believed to have been southernmost Ontario basins, drained eastward through Syracuse washed across the gravelly delta of the Lockport spillway of Lake to the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, following glacial retreat from Tonawanda during Newfane time (Miller, 1973), has been dated at the Batavia Moraine in western New York (Fig. 1) (Calkin, 1970; 12100±400 yr B.P. (1-838; Buckley and others, 1968). Sub- Muller, 1977a). The succeeding Glacial Lake Iroquois also drained sequently, uplift raised Lake Iroquois 12 m to its main phase and east into the Mohawk River but over a threshold near Rome, New submerged the Newfane deposits. York. It formed before a minor glacial readvance associated with An analysis of dates and events in the Ontario-St. Lawrence area the Carlton Moraine along the present Lake Ontario margin (Mul- has led Karrow and others (1975) to suggest that Lake Iroquois ler, 1977a). drained shortly after 12000 yr B.P. but before at least 11000 yr B.P. The time for initiation of the Niagara drainage is difficult to Iroquois drainage was followed by short-lived and lower lake bracket closely. The oldest date for Early Lake Erie is 12650 ± 170 phases that were tributary successively to Glacial Lake Vermont yr B.P. (1-4040; Lewis, 1969) on plant detritus; for Lake Iroquois, and to the Champlain Sea before Early Lake Ontario waters began it is 12660 ± 400 yr B.P. (W-861; Rubin and Alexander, 1960; to rise in response to glacial rebound. Muller, 1963) on wood from Lewiston, New York. However, peat During this immediately postglacial period, when the Lewiston dates such as 1-4040 may be contaminated by recycled carbon (see, spillway (future Niagara Gorge) was receiving a successively for example, Calkin and Miller, 1976); in addition, the W-861 date greater share of the Niagara discharge, Lake Erie itself was rapidly was subsequently rerun as 12080 ± 300 yr B.P. (W-833; Muller, increasing in elevation and size with uplift of its outlet at Buffalo 1963). In any case, wood dates of 12730 ± 220 yr B.P.