Finger Lakes

The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located directly south of Lake Ontario in an area called the Finger Lakes region in New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional edge of the Northern Allegheny Plateau, known as the Finger Lakes Uplands and Gorges ecoregion, and the Ontario Lowlands ecoregion of the Great Lakes Lowlands. The geological term finger lake refers to a long, narrow lake in an overdeepened glacial valley, while the proper name Finger Lakes goes back to the late 19th century. Cayuga and Seneca Lakes are among the deepest in the United States, measuring and respectively, with bottoms well below sea level. Though none of the lakes' widths exceed , Seneca Lake is long, and , the largest in total area. The origin of the name Finger Lakes is uncertain. Currently, the oldest known published use of finger lakes for this group of 11 lakes is in a United States Geological Survey paper by Thomas Chamberlin that was published in 1883. This paper was later cited and Finger Lakes formally used as a proper name by R. S. Tarr in a Geological Society of America paper published in 1893. Older usage of Finger Lakes in either maps, papers, reports, or any other documents remains to be verified. The eleven Finger Lakes, from west to east, are: Cazenovia Lake to the east, although smaller, is sometimes called "the 12th Finger Lake", because it is similar in shape and limnology. It is in Appalachian hill terrain, lying mostly in the historic village of Cazenovia, and is linked to other Finger Lakes by US 20 and NY 13. It may have been formed in the same manner as the Finger Lakes, as satellite photos show three valleys similar in character and spacing to the Finger Lakes east of Otisco Lake. The first is the Tully Valley, which includes a chain of six small lakes called the Tully Lakes at the south end that could collectively be a "Finger Lake" that never formed because of a terminal moraine.