COMBINING SURFICIAL MAPPING WITH GIS TO INVESTIGATE THE GLACIAL HISTORY OF THE SKANEATELES, NEW YORK REGION

Surficial geology mapping during the summer of 2000 associated with New York’s STATEMAP program focused on the Skaneateles and Spafford, NY region of the Finger Lakes. This mapping has identified a variety of sediment-landform assemblages including: moraine ridges; ice border drainage channels; and a series of deltaic bodies built by meltwater into glacial lakes that occupied the Skaneateles lake basin during deglaciation.

This primarily lithostratigraphic and morphostratigraphic database has been used to create GIS coverages for the mapping area. These coverages permit GIS analyses that make use of the map units, associated landforms, and accordance of the elevations of related ice marginal landforms to re-construct the glacial history of this important region. This dual approach to analyzing the glacial sediments and landforms has identified a series of ice margin positions and provide the basis for determining the ice border geometry of this portion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet.