The sedimentary framework of the southern basin of Lake George, New York

Abstract

Information from 240 km of high-resolution seismic reflection profiles has been analyzed to show the bathymetric and subsurface configuration of southern Lake George in the southeastern corner of the Adirondack Mountains, New York. Three units have been identified and sampled in 13 piston cores as long as 7 m and 4 grab samples; they are glacial drift, glaciolacustrine nonorganic clay, and Holocene lake mud rich in organic material. Three deep bedrock basins controlled glacial, glaciolacustrine, and postglacial deposition within the lake. Glaciolacustrine clay is more than 30 m thick in these basins but is generally absent in water depths less than 20 m. An unconformity separates glaciolacustrine clay from overlying Holocene mud in water depths less than 30 m, but the contact is conformable and transitional in deeper water. The unconformity may have originated from subaqueous or subaerial erosion during a low stage of lake level which probably occurred between 10,000 and 700 yr B.P. Holocene lake mud is thin to absent in the shallower waters separating the three basins, but reaches 15-m thickness near the entrance to The Narrows. A new radiocarbon date of 6950 ?? 60 yr B.P. was obtained from a wood fragment which was found in the Holocene lake mud. We found no clear evidence of postglacial tectonic disturbances of the lake sediments although recent releveling profiles suggest that the Adirondack Mountains are undergoing contemporary uplift.