The history of deglaciation in the Finger Lakes region since the Valley Heads readvance is questioned by recent research in the Cayuga basin, which concludes that, instead of forming a series of proglacial lakes, drainage during the Mackinaw Interstade was into the Laurentide ice sheet. First suspected in the Dryden–Virgil Valley where there is an absence of a lake outlet or surficial lacustrine deposits, this conclusion was explicitly revealed in the Sixmile–Willseyville trough where ice margin channels funneled water into the ice front. Further support was found in the Cayuga Inlet Valley, where a kettle kame terrane sloped northward into the ice front. Northward drainage was preceded by southerly drainage, with reversal occurring about 16.3 kyr ago. Multi-channel seismic profiles at the south end of Lake Cayuga reveal a south-sourced subaqueous sedimentary fan at the base of the lacustrine sequence. This fan is correlated with a coarse and heterogeneous clastic sequence penetrated in water wells in the City of Ithaca and requires northward drainage into a subglacial lake, which precludes the existence of proglacial lakes Ithaca, Newberry, and Hall. The proposed subglacial flow path is through the Cayuga trough, exiting the ice front eastward in the Mohawk Valley. Subglacial drainage from the Cayuga trough probably was part of a regional subglacial drainage system during the Mackinaw Interstade. Studies north of Lake Ontario have led to the proposal of a subglacial lake in the Ontario basin at that time, which likely also drained into the Mohawk Valley.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
October 31, 2019
Northward subglacial drainage during the Mackinaw Interstade in the Cayuga basin, central New York, USA
Daniel E. Karig;
a
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.Corresponding author: Daniel E. Karig (email: dek9@cornell.edu).
Search for other works by this author on:
Todd S. Miller
Todd S. Miller
b
U.S. Geological Survey (retired), Ithaca, NY, USA.
Search for other works by this author on:
Todd S. Miller
b
U.S. Geological Survey (retired), Ithaca, NY, USA.Corresponding author: Daniel E. Karig (email: dek9@cornell.edu).
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Received:
31 Jul 2019
Accepted:
24 Oct 2019
First Online:
04 Aug 2020
Online ISSN: 1480-3313
Print ISSN: 0008-4077
Published by NRC Research Press
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (2020) 57 (8): 981–998.
Article history
Received:
31 Jul 2019
Accepted:
24 Oct 2019
First Online:
04 Aug 2020
Citation
Daniel E. Karig, Todd S. Miller; Northward subglacial drainage during the Mackinaw Interstade in the Cayuga basin, central New York, USA. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 2019;; 57 (8): 981–998. doi: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2019-0111
Download citation file:
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Email alerts
Index Terms/Descriptors
- Cenozoic
- deglaciation
- Finger Lakes
- geophysical methods
- geophysical profiles
- geophysical surveys
- Ithaca New York
- lithostratigraphy
- New York
- paleoenvironment
- paleohydrology
- Pleistocene
- Quaternary
- reflection methods
- seismic methods
- seismic profiles
- subglacial environment
- surveys
- Tompkins County New York
- United States
- upper Pleistocene
- upper Wisconsinan
- Wisconsinan
- Mackinaw Interstade
- Cayuga Lake basin
Latitude & Longitude
Citing articles via
Related Articles
Regional unconformities and the sedimentary architecture of the Oak Ridges Moraine area, southern Ontario
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Depositional systems and seismic stratigraphy of a Quaternary basin: north Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Late Quaternary glacial and sedimentary history of Bonavista Bay, northeast Newfoundland
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Related Book Content
Quaternary Evolution of the East Texas Coast and Continental Shelf
Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems
Assessment of Black Sea water-level fluctuations since the Last Glacial Maximum
Geology and Geoarchaeology of the Black Sea Region: Beyond the Flood Hypothesis
Further evidence for the Matanuska megaflood hypothesis, Alaska
Untangling the Quaternary Period—A Legacy of Stephen C. Porter
Styles of deglaciation in central Maine
Late Pleistocene History of Northeastern New England and Adjacent Quebec