How New York's Finger Lakes Formed; The Long & Narrow Lakes

[@billbridge7458]

Thank you for doing a story on the Finger Lakes! Those of us who live in this area are thankful for what the glaciers left behind!

[@michaelimbesi2314]

Mad props for correctly pronouncing Canandaigua.

[@DJ-bh1ju]

I know... that's one of the tougher ones.

[@sueellens]

@@michaelimbesi2314 I agree! Honeoye, Conesus and Skaneateles are confusing to non-natives! 😆

[@NathanaelNewton]

Intriguing.. I always thought it was cah-nan-dah-gwah

[@mundanestuff]

@@NathanaelNewton Can Anne Day gwah. I suppose regional accents and history could have changed it. The local flat A with some nasal input certainly doesn't help

[@NathanaelNewton]

@@mundanestuffI lived near Watertown for a couple of years as a kid and heard it pronounced on the radio, that's where I got my thoughts

[@RufotrisRootedRockhound]

Thank you for your great videos and explanations! Simple, informative, and fast.

[@gregbluefinstudios4658]

I went to school upstate (Ithaca College) and spent tons of weekends, in the gorges, lakes, sheer cliffs and waterfalls. There's so many cool rock formations, and such cool geology all within a few hours drive.

[@massimookissed1023]

I've been to Switzerland, where they have a lot of glacial U-shaped velleys, and yeah, steep sides and lots of waterfalls.

[@xwiick]

Thanks for all the hard work on these videos!

[@callaflower221]

Can I tell you how much I love how concise your videos are? There’s no reason it should take more than 5 minutes for someone to explain this topic to me and you did it.

[@ECMalcolm]

I never expected to see a video on this channel covering the area I live in.

[@SweetSunrising]

Was just about to drop the same exact comment😂

[@Pixi_Plz]

Same!

[@PilgrimBangs]

I grew up in Naples just south of Canandaigua Lake.

[@chrimony]

All of Canada was under a glacier 20,000 years ago. Sea levels rose 400 feet when the glaciers retreated. But we're in a "climate emergency" now.

[@mrbaab5932]

Me too. I grew up on the tip of the middle finger 🖕 of the Finger Lakes.

[@RKOuttathebox]

Another great feature of the finger lake area is to the west of the lakes, Letchworth State Park. Known as the "Grand Canyon of the East" it must have been formed by a massive amount of water that formed a gorge approaching 600 feet deep. It is also one of only a hand full of rivers that flow from the south, to the north and empties into Lake Ontario. It was also recently voted the best State Park in America and has three major waterfalls. Great area to visit, especially in the fall. Amazing what water can form!

[@PilgrimBangs]

Camped there a few times when I was a kid. It is a beautiful place for sure.

[@DJ-bh1ju]

I'm in Mt. Morris/Geneseo... in the Genesee Valley... Hi Neighbor!

[@RKOuttathebox]

@@DJ-bh1ju Hey, you practically live in Letchworth! lucky you, great place!

[@h8GW]

Adding to Google maps now. I'll stop over next time I go to Canada.

[@sueellens]

I love the Finger Lakes. I live near Rochester and see them very frequently. Thank you!

[@DJ-bh1ju]

I'm just south of Rochester near Geneseo... Hi Neighbor!

[@sueellens]

@@DJ-bh1ju hello!

[@Alexandra-jj2qh]

Yes, incredibly beautiful. So blessed to have them in Upstate NY!

[@SB-qm5wg]

Letchworth Park is awesome 😸

[@hisownfool1]

@@DJ-bh1ju West Henrietta here

[@Shivaho]

Way back in November 1974 I took my Open Water Dive in Skaneateles Lake to get certified for Scuba Diving. At a Certain Depth there is a Shelf that Supposedly connects all of the Finger Lakes to the same underground source.

[@Me3stR]

I love learning about Glacier Geology!

[@TheSpaceEnthusiast-vl6wx]

Thanks as always, Geology Hub!

[@ThatOpalGuy]

I love your videos. Keep up the good work.

[@gr84all]

I'm going to Ithaca in August, so I will keep this video in mind..

[@rsphotography20]

Beautiful area. I love Ithaca! Just keep in mind that it will take you quite a bit of time to move through the city haha. Through-Traffic and college traffic make it quite difficult to get through in a timely manner

[@gr84all]

​@@rsphotography20Yeah, I heard about all the steep roads & potholes, but nevertheless, it is a beautiful place. I really want to see Carl Sagan's house & grave, as well as all those beautiful waterfalls!

[@billbridge7458]

Be sure to get out and explore the local gorges,waterfalls ,state parks,etc. You'll be glad you did!

[@SkepticalRaptor]

As a Syracuse University PhD grad and working in Rochester, I spent tons of time riding my bike around many of these lakes. Some my favorite wine comes from the vineyards that surround Seneca Lake.

[@sissifan5967]

Another Syracuse grad here! 🍊🍊🍊

[@bruceu1419]

Good video. I grew up in this area among the numerous drumlins, which are another notable glacial feature. A couple of the many beautiful places in the Finger Lakes that I recommend seeing are Watkins Glen and Fillmore Glen.

[@markshepardsongs]

this was great! Great to mix in this kind of content with your volcanic ones which are awesome too!

[@somethinburnin]

Thank You for a great video!!

[@paulmorgan1009]

Living in Ithaca and it’s an incredible area geologically! ❤

[@ChuckD59]

Great stuff. Another upstate NYer here. Been many places in the world and always come back here. The Finger Lakes, The Catskills, and of course the Adirondacks are just marvels of nature. Thank you! How about taking a look at the Helderberg Escarpment just south of Albany? I've heard various theories about its formation, the most common being it is the remaining edge of a geologic layer that once covered the Adirondacks and has now eroded back to its present place.

[@RamonaParadise]

Don't forget the Thousand Islands.

[@scottlypuff]

i love all the waterfalls in this region!

[@susiesue3141]

Wow! I have never heard of Finger Lakes. Thanks for sharing! 😊

[@joshsl3169]

very informative, I am moving to the area this year and was just wondering about this!

[@davidedickjr]

Cool! Years ago I lived in the plateau area south of Bath/Keuka Lake. What takes you to the area? Work? Retirement? School?

[@SweetSunrising]

Aw man I love this, thanks so much! It’s wild seeing your channel covering our region, at first I thought I was dreaming it 😂 To add to this, there was an ancient finger lake, a HUGE one called Lake Iroquois, and I think the surviving relic of it is the Oneida Lake. I can’t remember if it spanned equivalent of two counties, but it slowly drained from not enough leftover glacial till to properly plug up the drainage channels.

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

Lake Ontario is the successor of Lake Iroquois. You can see old shorelines on both sides of the lake, with steep slopes between them, left from when the water level was higher, when the St. Lawrence was still blocked by the ice sheets and the Great Lakes drained through the Hudson Valley.😅

[@Islander2112]

Excellent presentation! I hope you do another one about the formation of Long Island in the same area.

[@stevejohnson3357]

I was surprised to get a little nostalgia hit just now. In high school, Geography 12 students got an annual field trip. In the north, the vally Kanaka Creek carved was v shaped as you showed. In the middle there was a canyon and waterfall and you could see shale seams. Where it joined the Fraser, it had 1 meander but it was textbook. I wonder if they still do that.

[@HappyBirdGenetics]

Very cool episode! Just moved back to WNY after 30 years in Colorado and AZ. So much more enjoyable here.

[@Eddie07S]

A beautiful part of Upstate NY. Thanks for featuring. I have often wondered if Otsego lake (Cooperstown) and several other smaller lakes should have been included with the “Finger Lakes”. If nothing else, these lakes seem to be similar geological features.

[@PilgrimBangs]

I grew up in Naples at the southern end of Canandaigua Lake, the valley is incredibly beautiful. Especially in the fall when the autumn leave change is at peak. Great memories growing up there. These lakes are incredibly deep too. Canandaigua Lake is 247 feet deep, but the deepest lake is Seneca Lake at a whopping 618 feet deep!!

[@dianekassmann8821]

As a lifelong resident of this beautiful area I really enjoyed this video. In grade school we learned a lot about glaciers and their effects on the landscape, but this added great details. More videos on various glacial features could be interesting. Thank you!

[@jermsmason2082]

born and raised in the finger lakes, currently live right on seneca lake, voted as the most beautiful wine region in the world.

[@DJ-bh1ju]

I'm just west of Conesus... Hi Neighbor !

[@jermsmason2082]

@@DJ-bh1ju nice!

[@gryphnwnggrl]

Hey! My home! Never thought I'd see the finger lakes featured ❤😊

[@jimmyseaver3647]

I'll be visiting the region in the fall, so this is definitely welcome.

[@greywell2982]

I hope you like it. I recommend going on a mile walk to see the Seneca Lake State Park to see all of the beautiful tree walking.

[@TheSpiralAim]

Grew up in this area, and have been to everyone of these lakes lol. Lots of cool stuff around them.

[@SevereWeatherCenter]

I’ve always wanted to see a video on this. I it’s hard to imagine that only 10,000 years ago this whole area was under a mile of ice. That’s actually what caused some of the elevations in Long Island as it was a glacial moraine.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

Actually it was well more than 10,000 years ago when the area was under a mile of ice because by 10,000 years ago the glaciers were well into retreat and had been for several thousand years.

[@569139]

Seneca lake is right in my backyard been there many times the geology is fascinating thank you for the video

[@candui-7]

The finger lakes are likely tunnel channels, conduits for pressurized subglacial water outflowing south. RE: Jerome Lesemann

[@floydblandston108]

Too bad you didn''t include the nearby Black River valley. I've found rocks in the till there easily originated in the unique iron formations of far NE New York- 170 miles away, across the Adirondack mountains, giving an excellent reference to the ice depth and flow.

[@chriskuzianik9507]

Same with Lake George in the same state. The beauty there is stunning.

[@IONindustries627]

Can you do a video on the Geology of the Adirondack State Park?

[@PilgrimBangs]

It would be interesting too. It has unique geology and soil that made it unfit for early farming, that and its brutally cold in winter. So, it ever was settled and we have that wonderful wilderness to appreciate and enjoy.

[@pauldietz1325]

Did you know there was an early mini-rush for diamonds in Ithaca, NY (on Cayuga Lake)? Some veins identified as kimberlite were found, so people starting looking for diamonds. It turns out there are none, but those veins (intruded into various sedimentary rocks and exposed all over the place there) are still quite interesting.

[@DJ-bh1ju]

I'm in the Genesee Valley, which USED to be one of the Finger Lakes, several thousand years ago.

[@bobbenson6825]

Small correction: It's "Keuka" lake not "Keuke." My family rented a summer cabin on the eastern side back in the day, and this year my family tried to watch the total eclipse near the northern end of Cayuga Lake. But it was cloudy. Great area for wine and wineries. Also cool to note that the deepest of the lakes, Seneca, is up to 618 feet (188 meters) deep.

[@yaboytroy2079]

I live on Keuka lake, awesome to see my area recognized for its uniqueness

[@seif412]

Have you considered doing a video on the formation of the Olympic Penninsula/Mountains? I've heard credible theories about it forming off shore and being pushed into the land and it might have a connection to the Yellowstone Hot Spot. The source was an old video from Nick Zentner from Central Washington University who posts videos on youtube, but I would love to see your take on the history.

[@Dragrath1]

Interestingly due to how sediments infill bodies of water with no outlet Lakes have relatively short lifetimes on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands of years or less depending on their size eventually transitioning to various wetlands until they become filled in entirely. The only way to get older lakes is if you have some geological process removing sediment or expanding the lake basin as is the case with active rift lakes. Processes lakes can form from craters, calderas, landslide dams, lava dams, and various glacial processes. Thus unless you have or have had recent glaciation in an area natural lakes tend to be fairly rare so numerous lakes is a strong sign of glacial activity in general. Fun fact the Great lakes of North America are ancient basins which were excavated of weaker sedimentary fill rock layers by the glaciers. I think most of them owe their origin to Precambrian rift lakes when North America started to tear itself apart during the Mesoproterozoic only for that rift to ultimately fail. So in this sense these lakes are both ancient and very very young.

[@mysticmandolin]

Seneca Lake checking in💚

[@joeserdynski1045]

Thanks ! ! !

[@StuffandThings_]

What did the edge of the Laurentide ice sheet look like? I've seen illustrations that show it as a massive ice wall, but this really doesn't make sense considering the more gradual tapering of some modern glaciers that terminate on land. But, then again, we don't have anything quite analogous to that boundary today. Either way, I imagine it would have been a spectacular sight!

[@Ryan98063]

Gander Lake in Newfoundland is 50 km long 2 or 3 km across and drops like 800 feet. A neat geologic feature

[@GAMakin]

This one hits close to home. My Paternal Grandmother's family had a Vineyard on Canandaigua Lake, in operation since the early 1800s. Blight, flooding and the Great Depression forced them off the land in the mid-1930s. They moved to another property, East of Niagara Falls NY -- the remnants of a Land Grant bestowed upon a Forebear for his Service in the Revolutionary War. This area also has a rather rich, Post Glacial, History. It was beneath a massive glacial Lake that stretched from Ohio, to the Mohawk Valley. [NOTE: On the formation of the Finger Lakes. Some contend that the weight of Glacial Ice (underestimated in depth) fractured -- or facilitated fracturing of the Crustal Plate. 🤷 Something to think about -- a pleasure in any measure.]

[@nakor667]

You should cover the Lunar Mare (the dark patches of the moon) since they are impact craters filled with basaltic lava plains. And if there are any similar features on Earth.

[@iviewthetube]

This video was brought to you by an Interglacial Period.

[@Codysdab]

I too prefer warmth rather 1000s of feet deep of ice.

[@PattyLouM]

Since I live in California, the first thing that comes to mind is: Yosemite Valley, John Muir and glaciation!

[@rayzielonka7856]

What? No lava lamp footage?!😂 props to your pronunciation skills!

[@floffycatto6475]

Never been there, but have always enjoyed the view from google maps. It really is like a giant hand came down and scraped the surface.

[@audacyspectrum3612]

I guess the next question would be, what made them melt at such a dramatic pace?

[@DJDouglasWarden]

TY!

[@calmeilles]

This takes me back almost 50 years because the Finger Lakes were a topic of study in my high school geography lessons when I was 13 years old. When I saw the title I thought to myself, yup, glacial tills and moraines. Funny how things can stick with you for so long for no apparent reason. 🤣

[@JoshuaGrisewood]

If you look at google maps and look at the further left lake, there is a very tiny finger lake just to the left of it called "Silver lake" in perry NY and it has a small lore as being one of the forgotten finger lakes.

[@germanshepherd13]

Looking at Seneca right now. 630am beautiful sunrise

[@aw9680]

There are finger lakes in Washington too. I assume from the same process.

[@anneangstadt1882]

Interesting that there is a "failed lake" valley too

[@mundanestuff]

Yes, and that if it filled with water would be similarly shaped to Keuka Lake. But Naples would be underwater. It's gorgeous country, rolling hills, long north/south hills, heavily wooded in many places, lots of creeks to walk, gorges to enjoy, the lakes are a good temperature in the summer for swimming/boating etc. Oh, those fields in the failed-lake areas are full of incredibly rich soil too.

[@terrys4351]

Seneca LAke is beautiful and the Watefall Taughanock is quite the site.

[@kosycat1]

Shouout to Greek Peak. Some of the best powder on the east coast. One of my first stops on winter road trips from Maryland up to New England to shred.

[@DiscGoStu]

“My family thinks I’m in the Finger Lakes right now; I snuck away to do this interview. I better get back soon, or they’ll worry. People go missing in the Finger Lakes.” - Finger Lakes Guy as played by Jim Carry in The Office

[@owainw3501]

Can you do a video on what would hypothetically happen if a meteor hits an active volcano.

[@margaritadiaz5201]

💥💥💥💥💥😅 depending on the size and the speed 🤷‍♀️

[@donaldduck830]

Interesting thought. But to take it a step further: How big & fast would a meteor have to be so that it triggered a volcanic eruption? Based on everything I know about historic meteors and how deep the deepest bore hole is and about the Chixculub crater, I guess that If a meteor was big enough to trigger a volcano, then it was big enough that the volcano does not matter anymore.

[@owainw3501]

@@donaldduck830 Let's say an asteroid about 1/3 the size of the one from the kpg extinction moving at 2000 km/s and entering the atmosphere at like 30°

[@BeyondtheRailz]

New York is flipping everyone off with water.

[@graywolf7237]

i know that chautauqua lake further west isn't post glacial, but do you have any knowledge on what helped form it? probably not a full video but still curious

[@-gg8342]

Very interesting. The glaciers acted like finger nails scraping the earth as they grow and shrink.

[@AaronGeo]

Kid named finger:

[@DuneJumper]

Watuh put your ice away watuh I'm not having a glacial period right now watuh

[@tHebUm18]

4:12 Eventually fill with water? Wouldn't they immediately fill with water from the melting glaciers?

[@brucegoodwin634]

Please explain "flowing uphill"

[@paulkurilecz4209]

Thank you. I question that I have is do the lakes drain to the north or to the south?

[@GunSeller98]

Why does Chautauqua Lake always get left off the list of Finger Lakes? It was formed by the same process and isn’t that far away

[@frinoffrobis]

I lived close by there..

[@MJIZZEL]

It's a common misconception that the glaciers moved south from the poles. The center of the ice sheet was in Hudson Bay and as it melted, it melted from north to south above that point. We have c14 dates that show this. The Siberian islands inside the artic circle were covered in forest. North of there and only 400 miles from the north pole; are islands that also had vegetation and megafauna. Photosynthesis isn't possible 6 months out the year there today. Pole wasn't where it us now.

[@VolcanoGoldDiggerAdirondacks]

There is no glacial mountain's from here to Hudson bay. So it had to snow and snow, you can check it out by computer maps.

[@danielhertz7266]

Hunter's back tattoos

[@knutedunrvnyet]

Of course geologically there are 2 more : Canadarago Lake, and Otsego Lake [Cooperstown.] Also, 2 'failed' ones: Nelson swamp, just E of Caz, and Nine Mile Swamp, Sangerfield to Hubbardsville [famous for the Loomis Gang.]

[@thomaswwwiegand]

Ice, my first thought. No Glacier scratches found on the lake floor or nearby rocks ?

[@JSDudeca]

Is it true that the Great Lakes were formed by the glaciers? If so, what was the mechanism?

[@h8GW]

Say, what's that airport at the start of the clip? I thought it was Philly, but after consulting Google Maps, I guess not.

Question : are those lakes endangered by the global warming of drying?

[@TheDanEdwards]

That part of North America is expected to get increasing precipitation as the surface warms. There's a rather large National Assessment available from NOAA if you want to read more.

[@tensortab8896]

Low porosity or low permeability?

[@bretthogan5805]

What about Onondaga lake?

[@ethelhoose1196]

Live in the Finger lakes

[@dillbourne]

When has an interesting geologic feature in North America NOT been associated with glaciers?

[@StarrySGH]

When it's associated with volcanism! 😀

[@avgejoeschmoe2027]

You dont take into account the 5 mega sequences that came across the continent from South East to the North West. There are other events that took place, latter ice age , when mile high ice dams let loose carving and shaping those areas. Areas north of the fingerlakes are loaded with drumlins, sand quarries and ROUNDED pebble/rock quarries , evidence of a large heights of water, bolders and ice surging through the area. The Genesee Valley alone is 2373 square miles and all flowed North to Lake Ontario. The Drumlins all point North. Not MILLIONS of years. The immense destruction and landscape changes only took few weeks to carve. Slow INCHING glaciers is BS

[@bobsambo7543]

The same would occur over hundreds of years also (thus it does take millions).

[@robertmeredith3940]

Your geology is off. Mullins and Hinchey published seismic reflection profile investigations of the New York Finger Lakes in 1989 showing that they they actually have "V" shaped bedrock basins largely filled with "U" shaped sediment. Their great depths to as much as 1000 feet below sea level were eroded by subglacial water flows - not glaciation - although glaciers did carve and widen the upper shapes of the lakes. The Portage escarpment of limestone at the Southern ends of most of the lakes shows roughly how deep glaciation cut before the high pressure water flows eroded the shale North of that escarpment far deeper down to the level of the next lower sloping limestone level that limits the lake depths at their Northern ends. The water flows erupted at the Southern edge of the ice sheet and were too short lived to erode much of the limestone layers. The water flows give credence to a massive glacial melt off, which might be explained by extra-terrestrial impacts on the ice sheet.

[@KristofferThorsheim]

Fingers have souls!

[@scrappydoo7887]

And feet have soles

[@Cinnemax77]

Dude- you sound like Kermit the Frog in every video

[@jaydensmith920]

Hey i can see my house from here!

[@garrettmillard525]

Please I need more on this! I cannot wrap my head around how this happens! I understand they were absolutely massive, incredible amounts of inertia. But where did their initial speed come from? They got all the way they went just from their momentum from when they were in the ocean?

[@JCMik5646]

There's lower friction on water than on land... If you ride the accelerator for long enuff, your glacier will be going fast enough to ramp over the Appalatcheey Mowntins and jump it onto the Allegheny Plateau.

[@garrettmillard525]

@@JCMik5646 Thank you! So it was a rather sudden thing?

[@bardmadsen6956]

20ka at that location is 6,000 feet makes me wonder how the depth up to the poles would look like to equal the - 400' of sea level? Someone had to do a graphic, or should.

[@TheDanEdwards]

I bet there are entire books dedicated to paleoclimatology that includes such info, or even basic geology texts.

[@bardmadsen6956]

@@TheDanEdwards That is an idea, typically those types of books are $300. I just want the general depth, say for every five-ten degrees. I grew up around aviation, two miles or more of ice is a long ways, really hard to imagine. You seem to be at many channels I frequent.

[@jefflilyea4669]

My cousin lives on spook hill.

[@fingersoup]

My favorite lakes. 🤭

[@MaQuGo119]

Younger Dryas

[@daveselbow9128]

anyone else love how this guy talks?