Lake Chautauqua And The Niagara Escarpment

I have noticed a relationship between the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Chautauqua that I cannot find has been pointed out before. This relationship does a lot to illustrate how the movement of ice age glaciers is affected by obstacles such as an escarpment. As always when I write about geology and natural history in the general area where I live, I try to write in such a way that the reader will not need to be familiar with the area to understand it.

Here is a map link, or you can use an atlas: www.maps.google.com

If you do happen to be familiar with the western New York State area, your first reaction might be to wonder what picturesque Lake Chautauqua, in the southeast corner of the state, could possibly have to do with the Niagara Escarpment, which is nearly a two hour drive away. To see what the two have to do with each other, the lake is actually a creation of the escarpment, let's look at a map showing all of the escarpment.

The Niagara Escarpment is a very prominent feature of the landscape which can easily be seen on any map of the northeastern U.S. Start with the Door Peninsula, which separates Green Bay in Wisconsin from Lake Michigan. This peninsula is part of an arc that continues across northern Michigan to Manitoulin Island, which separates Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, to the Bruce Peninsula of Ontario.

The escarpment continues southward across southern Ontario until it changes direction at Hamilton. From there, it continues eastward to Rochester where it terminates. Three cities; Hamilton, St. Catharines and, Lockport, NY are built right on the Niagara Escarpment, with part of the city on the higher level and the rest below the escarpment.

I have written extensively about the escarpment in numerous postings on the geology, glacial and, Niagara natural history blogs. The posting "The Niagara Escarpment And The Meteor", on the geology blog www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com , explains my theory of the origin of the escarpment. It is not a fault line as it may appear but the result of uneven erosion of the limestone layers over millions of years. "America's Escarpment State", on this blog, explains how the upper Great Lakes were shaped by the interaction of glacial ice with the escarpment.

The escarpment is not simply a higher level above a lower level. It is actually in the form of a sawtooth, with the upper level gradually getting lower in elevation as we move away from the brink of the escarpment.

There are many elongated lakes in western New York State, carved by the movement of glacial ice during the ice ages. The well-known and scenic Finger Lakes can be easily explained by looking at the map. We know that the Niagara Escarpment ends at Rochester and that there are the Adirondack Mountains in the eastern part of the state. These two barriers had the effect of a funnel in that they concentrated the movement of ice into the space between them.

This especially heavy concentration of glacial ice carved the Finger Lakes. In fact in the posting on this blog, "New York's New Finger Lake" I explained my reasons for believing that the gorge at Letchworth State Park was actually formed as one of the Finger Lakes.

The thing that is puzzling about Lake Chautauqua is it's directional alignment, which is from northwest to southeast, so that it does not match the alignment of any of the other lakes at all. It is deep and narrow lake, typical of those carved by glacial ice, and is actually a double lake with two basins.

It is not difficult to see how the lake was formed, there is a broad rounded ridge between it and Lake Erie with Westfield on one side and Mayville on the other side. Ice coming down over that ridge, which was formed by the tectonic collision which formed the Appalachians, carved the lake.

Now, let's go back to the Niagara Escarpment. My hypothesis is that, while the outside of the escarpment formed a natural barrier for ice, glacial ice was also guided along the inside of the escarpment since it is shaped like a sawtooth. Follow the curve of the escarpment on a map across northern Michigan, which is actually a creation of the escarpment, along Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario.

But then, while we know that the escarpment changes direction at Hamilton, continue the same line across southern Ontario and Lake Erie. Notice that this curve, if continued, brings us right to Lake Chautauqua and in the exact directional alignment of the lake.

This solves the mystery of how the lake came to be, glacial ice was guided by the inside of the Niagara Escarpment and pulled by the rotation of the earth to the south and east, and carved the lake as it came over the broad, rounded ridge between Lake Chautauqua and Lake Erie.

Let's call this movement of ice the Chautauqua Movement. The term "chautauqua" is actually a part of American history. In the days before radio and television, tents would be set up to bring various educational lectures and arts to rural areas with the same concept as a travelling circus. The original chautauqua was on the shore of the lake and is now known as the Chautauqua Institution. But that version of chautauqua has long since passed so that it can now be the name of this glacial ice movement along the inside of the Niagara Escarpment.

There is yet another example of a lake with a mysterious directional alignment in western New York State. This one is known as Waterport Pond, or Waterport Reservoir. It is much smaller than Lake Chautauqua and is found north of the Niagara Escarpment in Orleans County, between the towns of Medina and Albion and not far from the shore of Lake Ontario. This is also an elongated lake, but it's directional alignment is actually perpendicular to the usual glacial movement from the north northwest.

The reason for the formation of this lake is ice being deflected off a limited area of the escarpment. In the same way that a ball thrown at a wall, but at a certain angle, will bounce off the wall at the same angle but on the opposite side.