The Untold Origin Story of the Falls

Carpenter Falls

Over the last 12,000 years, the landscape of this region has undergone colossal amounts of change. Hidden all over the Finger Lakes, in cracks and valleys, are geologic wonders. So abundant is their splendor that many locals have become numb to the consistent gurgling of waterfalls on their daily commute through Montour Falls, such as Aunt Sarah’s Falls (right). Yet no two of the over 2,000 gorges that call the Finger Lakes home are the same; each one has a different finger print with a different number of curves, caverns, and cascades.

The Finger Lakes of New York State are a unique natural phenomenon, there are no other lakes quite like them in all the world. Eleven north flowing lakes span over 120 miles of the western section of New York, ranging from Canadice - 3 miles long to Cayuga - 38.2 miles long, as well as Honeoye - 30 feet deep to Seneca - 634 feet deep. 

 https://www.svcsd.org/Page/1282

About 2.5 million years ago dawned the age of ice. In this region, glaciers are thought to have been over 3,000 feet high, or about the size of two Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other. It is a result of these glaciers growing that we now have finger lakes;

before we had  “finger rivers.” All of our U shape lake basins were originally V shaped river valleys; as the glaciers bulldozed their way through the valleys, the unrelenting force gouged out the walls. Nonetheless, about 12,000 years ago, the climate started to warm, ending the reign of the Ice Age. 

As the glaciers started to recede, the glacial melt filled in the lakes and exposed steep U shaped valley walls. All around would have been hanging valleys comprised of massive waterfalls dropping straight into the lakes. Today, every gorge near the lakes, including those south of the lakes, began its story as a one of those waterfalls and has since eroded back into the rock.

Howard Cogan

 “Ithaca is Gorges” is an iconic phrase in Ithaca, referring to the numerous gorgeous — gorges around the city which is located at the base of Cayuga lake. This clever pun, however, has a forgotten key third part. As the massive waterfalls started to erode back into the rock, all of the eroded sediment built up at the base of the lake; this erosion was so quick that our lakes are miles shorter than they were originally. “Ithaca is gorges” because it was formed by the gorges and would not exist without them!

The extremely fast rate of erosion in our gorges alludes to its rich ancient natural history dating back long before the Ice Age. The 380 million year old (380,000,000) layers of rock in the gorge were each once the bottom of an expansive inland ocean that covered much of the Eastern states. 380 million years ago, the earth was unrecognizable; life was just beginning to take a foothold on land. In fact, New York lays claim to the oldest known fossilized trees in the world. The early roots of these Gilboa trees were pioneering the rocky, unforgiving earth. Ancestors of amphibians had evolved a prototype for modern lungs. And insects were testing their newly evolved wings, exploring the world from the skies for the first time.

Painting by Kristen V.H. Wyckoff

Located, at the time, below the equator, this tropical inland sea was the result of a collision between North America and Europe. When these two continents collided, North America subducted, or went under Europe and Europe crinkled up creating an impressive mountain range just off the coast of New York. The Acadian Mountains are estimated to have been as big, if not bigger, than the Himalayans are today!

Much of the sediment found in the inland sea would have come from the erosion of the mountains; the depth of this water would therefore, over time, have affected the type of sediment found on the ocean bottom. Gradually, the compaction of these layers caused enough pressure to solidify the sediment into rock. 

Shallow water —> sandy ocean bottom —> sandstone; 

Deep water —> muddy ocean bottom —> shale; 

Sudden drought —> sea creatures die, shells of crustaceans —> limestone. 

Therefore, every layer of rock in our gorges, be it the more brittle rock - shale or the denser rocks - sandstone and limestone, were at one time the bottom of the ocean!

The layers however are only half of the puzzle influencing the speed of erosion in the gorge.

Breaking up the layers, in a stunning display of natural masonry, are countless straight line fractures. There are fractures or joints that follow the gorges east to west and those that span across the gorge north to south, intersecting at almost perfect right angles.  Notice the unnatural looking straight lines and right angles in the photo of Robert H. Treman State Park (right).  

300 million years ago, all of the continents were joining together into one enormous supercontinent that stretched from pole to pole called Pangea. This time, western Africa collided with the eastern side of North America; nonetheless, the stress of the collision alone was not the force needed to create the fractures.

The pressure Africa inflicted on North America caused straight line weak points in the rock perpendicular to the pressure. About 300 million years ago, a batch of methane gas had matured under pressure and heat and took advantage of the weak points to escape from the depths of earth. Then, for 30 million years, Africa unassumingly rotated on a fulcrum around North America until, by chance, when Africa was at about a 90 degree angle from where the first batch of methane gas was released, another batch escaped through the rock. Next time you find yourself in the Finger Lakes, keep an eye out for these natural right angles, they're everywhere!

Taughannock Falls amphitheater has thousands of joints that contributed to the bowl shape

The top of the falls has two joints intersecting at a right angle

Taking into account all 380 million years of the gorges’ rich natural history; 

• the glaciers that created the U shaped valleys lake basins and the hanging valleys
• the joints that resulted from the release of methane gas through the weakened rock
• and the layers of rock - shale, sandstone, and limestone, remnants of an ancient inland sea

- an ingenious combination of forces all working together to form the gorges in only 12,000 years comes to light. In short, as the water easily erodes away the brittle shale and undercuts itself, the joints or fractures that break up the creek bed speed up the erosion process by causing chunks of the denser rocks - sandstone and limestone to fall at a time. The water, therefore, never has to take the time to erode away the denser types of rock. In consequence, we can affectionately say that "Although our gorges are 12,000 years old, their story can be told in no less than 380 million years." 

See how many geologic clues you can find in this 1870’s stereocard of the “Matchless Scene” (now referred to as the Glen of Pools) in Watkins Glen State Park