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The Finger Lakes Region: Its Origin And Nature O. D. Von Engeln



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.[2][3] Cayuga and Seneca Lakes are among the deepest in the United States, measuring 435 feet (133 m) and 618 feet (188 m) respectively, with bottoms well below sea level. Though none of the lakes' widths exceed 3.5 miles (5.6 km), Seneca Lake is 38.1 miles (61.3 km) long, and 66.9 square miles (173 km2), the largest in total area.[2]


The origin of the name Finger Lakes is uncertain.[4] 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[5] that was published in 1883. This paper was later cited and Finger Lakes formally used as a proper name by R. S. Tarr[6] in a Geological Society of America paper published in 1893.[7] Older usage of Finger Lakes in either maps, papers, reports, or any other documents remains to be verified.[4]




The Finger Lakes Region: Its Origin And Nature O. D. Von Engeln




Conesus, Hemlock, Canadice, Honeoye, and Otisco are considered the minor Finger Lakes.[by whom?] Other, smaller lakes, including Silver, Waneta, and Lamoka lakes, dot this region. Silver Lake, west of Conesus Lake, would seem to qualify because it is in the Great Lakes watershed, but Waneta and Lamoka lakes, sometimes called the "fingernail" lakes,[24] are part of the Susquehanna River watershed, draining into a tributary of the Chemung River.


Implemented in August, 2010, the Hemlock-Canadice State Forest covers 6,684 acres (27.05 km2) that encompass the two western Finger Lakes, Hemlock and Canadice. These lakes have provided drinking water for the City of Rochester for more than 100 years. To protect water quality, the city acquired much of the property around the lakes. Over the decades, the land reforested, but a few traces of its past, such as stone walls or cottage foundations, remain. Today these two lakes, with their steep, forested, largely-undeveloped shorelines and deep, clear water, provide visitors a glimpse of the Finger Lakes of the past. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) manages this State Forest for compatible public access for recreation, including fishing, hunting, nature study, boating and hiking. Activities in Hemlock-Canadice State Forest are subject the DEC's Rules and Regulations for the Use of State Lands, 6 NYCRR Part 190, as well as any other applicable state statutes, rules and regulations. These are sensitive areas because they protect public drinking water.


In this chapter, we review the literature on the diversity of species that belong to the Enterococcus genus, discuss their origin and distribution in nature, and focus on the gut colonization by the enterococci and their transition from commensal to opportunistic pathogens.


E. faecium and E. faecalis are generally the most frequently encountered species of Enterococcus in food products (Lopez-Diaz, Santos, Gonzalez, Moreno, & Garcia, 1995; Suzzi, et al., 2000). Martin and collaborators (Martín, Corominas, Garriga, & Aymerich, 2009) investigated the species distribution of enterococci in traditional fermented sausages by species-specific multiplx PCR, and by atpA and 16S rDNA gene sequencing. They identified E. faecalis (31.4%) and E. faecium (30.7%), and more rarely E. sanguinicola (14.9%), E. devriesei (9.7%), E. malodoratus (7.2%), E. casseliflavus (3.4%), E. gallinarum (1.3%), E. gilvus (1.0%), E. hermanniensis (0.2%), and E. durans (0.2%) (Martín, Corominas, Garriga, & Aymerich, 2009). The species E. camelliae, E. italicus, E. thailandicus, and E. lactis were originally isolated from tea leaves, an Italian cheese, fermented sausages, and raw milk cheese, respectively (Fortina, Ricci, Mora, & Manachini, 2004; Morandi, Cremonesi, Povolo, & Brasca, 2012; Sukontasing, Tanasupawat, Moonmangmee, Lee, & Suzuki, 2007; Tanasupawat, Sukontasing, & Lee, 2008). The natural habitat of these Enterococcus species is very likely not fermented food, but elsewhere in nature in ecologies yet to be defined.


question was agitated, whether any changes in the level of sea and land had occurredduring the historical period it was soon discovered that considerable tracts of land had been permanently elevated and depressed, while thelevel of the ocean remained unaltered. It is therefore necessary to reverse thedoctrine which had acquired so much popularity, and the unexpected solution ofa problem at first regarded as so enigmatical, gave perhaps the strongest stimulusto investigate the ordinary operations of nature. For it must have appeared almostas improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should oneday throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first astronomers,that the fall of an apple should assist in explaining the motions of the moon.


After having given these examples, Lyell says that the geologists of his timeare, for the most part, agreed on questions "as to what rocks are of igneousand what of aqueous origin-in what manner fossil shells, whether of the sea orof lakes, have been imbedded in strata" etc. and are "unanimous as toother propositions which are not of a complicated nature; but when we ascend tothose of a higher order, we find as little disposition


as formerly to make a strenuous effort, in the first instance [repeated here!],to search out an explanation in the ordinary economy of Nature".Sound Theorizing in Geology and the "Spirit of Speculation"In chapter I of Volume III of his Principles, entitled "Methods of Theorizingin Geology", Lyell simply distinguishes two opposite ways of thinking. Onestarts from scratch with geological reasoning without first making a careful studyof the "ordinary economy of nature". This method has led to untenablespeculations and even absurdities; the history of geology provides several examples.This lesson of history should finally be accepted, not merely on incidental points(such as the nature of fossils, the igneous origin of various crystalline rocks,etc.), but as a principle. The second method in contrast starts with a carefulstudy of the present economy of nature, and then sees if the results of the geologicalprocesses of the past are really different from those of those oing on at present.This methodological principle has- to be applied to every aspect of geology andhis reproach to Cuvier and his school, for example, is that they apply it onlypartially but not consistently. Such critics are described in the following:


For example, consider the world famous example of the Grand Canyon of the ColoradoRiver, where Paleozoic rocks, still in horizontal position, unconformably overlietilted Algonkian or intensely folded and metamorphosed Archean Rocks at one locality.As a result of what geologists call epeirogenic movements, this area has beenuplifted vertically without changing the original horizontal position of the Paleozoicrocks. Following the uplift, the Colorado River has cut deeply into the rocksto expose, in the steep walls of the canyon, the beautiful vertical successionof more than 1000 meters of Paleozoic strata, In this exposure of a normal uncomplicatedsuccession, the superposition is simple and clear. The Archean basement rockslie at the bottom of the canyon. Progressively higher up on the walls within thecanyon we found the Algonkian sedimentary rocks, then the older Paleozoic rocks,and finally-around the canyon rims-the younger Paleozoic rocks.Very often, however, things are more complicated. Frequently, the original subhorizontalposition of thesediments at the time they were deposited has not been preserved; as a resultof differential movements in the earth's crust, the sedimentary sequences havebeen tilted, broken, or folded, so that the layers usually show a dip (varyingfrom a few degrees up to a vertical position). Topographically, these differentialmovements may give rise to subaerial elevations (mountains) and depressions (lowlands).The mountainous areas are subjected to erosion, which results in the developmentof new topographic surfaces cutting the bedding planes of the layered sedimentaryrocks at an angle. Eventually, erosion may lead to so called "peneplains"or subhorizontal erosion surfaces of vast extent. These peneplains thus may exposethick sequences of sedimentary rocks, in thickness far exceeding those of theGrand Canyon and of which superposition is as undoubtedly established.In the Grand Canyon, we find a sequence (some 1000 meters thick) of horizontalPaleozoic rocks exposed-in the steep canyon walls-in only the very short lateraldistance traversed as we ride from the bottom of the canyon to the high rim overlookingthe canyon.In a large region of subhorizontal topography (a peneplain) underlain by nonhorixontaldipping,folded, or hasinal-sedimentary layers, on the other hand, nature may have exposedsequences of rocks amounting to many thousands of meters in thickness. In sucha situation, we can no longer speak of a local superposition. We can, for example,walk for hundreds of kilometers across a series of low-dipping sediments in the"Paris Basin", from Triassic rocks in Luxemburg to Middle Tertiary rocksin Paris. Local differences in topographic elevation (a few up to perhaps 100meters) are insignificant compared to the distance of a few hundred kilometersand the thickness (about 2000 meters) of the sediments which are exposed at ornear the surface. In the case of the Paris Basin, which covers a great part ofFrance, we have a huge bowl-shaped structure, consisting of strata dipping gentlytowards the centre, which implies of course that the younger strata are exposedin the central, the older in the peripheral, parts of the basin. There can beno doubt about the superposition of the strata in the Paris Basin. The formationsare only very gently deformed, and a tectonic reversal is entirely excluded.A comparable but much larger structure, with lowdipping Mesozoic and Tertiarystrata, is found in the Gulf Coast Area of Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Floridain North America. This is a huge structure of low-dipping strata, in which thesuperposition is unquestionably normal and also very well known (as a result ofthousands of bore holes which have been drilled in the search for oil in theseareas). Again, here we cannot reasonably speak of just one locality or one place.But surface and subsurface data permit an unquestionable correlation, layer bylayer, and thus the establishment of the sequence of normally superimposed strataattaining a thickness of many thousands of meters.No evolutionary theory whatsoever could or would ever suggest a reversed positionof the strata in the Paris Basin in Europe or in the Gulf Coast Basin in NorthAmerica! The paleontologist would thereby saw through the branch on which he sits.The stratigraphic column has been built up essentially on the basis of sedimentarysequences in many relatively stable areas where tectonic disturbances and metamorphism played a minor role and where therefore a reversed positionof the strata could a priori be eliminated. On the basis of solid knowledge fromthese simple areas, the tools have been obtained which permit us to understandmore complicated regions. This is an example of the procedure followed by everygeologist when he enters a new or unknown area; he first looks for the simplerstructures which permit the establishment of the stratigraphic sequence, whichin turn is a basic tool for unraveling complicated tectonic structures.In summary, I want to emphasize that the way nature exposes huge sequences ofstrata is usually not by cutting deep canyons or valleys into highly upheavedhorizontal strata at one place, but instead by differential crustal movementsfollowed by peneplaining erosion (which uncovers older strata in mountainous areasand also furnishes sedimentary materials which are then deposited-often containingfossils-to form younger strata). As a result of such tilting and other crustalmovements, great areas of dipping, but unquestionably normally superimposed, strataare now found at or near the surface, and are therefore accessible to the geologist.The huge sequences of sedimentary strata which can be studied in such relativelyundisturbed positions over great areas all over the world form the solid factualbasis for the establishment of the time stratigraphic column. 2ff7e9595c


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