Here is a quick look at my other blogs before you start this one.
My main blog, where the most recent postings on all topics are to be found, is http://www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/
If you liked this blog on the natural history of the Niagara area, you will also like my blogs about geology, http://www.markmeekearth.blogspot.com/ and global natural history concerning glaciers, http://www.markmeekworld.blogspot.com/ .
http://www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/ is my observations concerning meteorology and biology.
http://www.markmeekphysics.blogspot.com/ is my blog about physics and astronomy.
http://www.markmeekcosmology.blogspot.com/ is my version of string theory that solves many unsolved mysteries about the underlying structure and beginning of the universe.
http://www.markmeekpatterns.blogspot.com/ details my work with the fundamental patterns and complexity that underlies everything in existence.
http://www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com/ is about economics, history and, general human issues.
http://www.markmeekprogress.blogspot.com/ concerns progress in technology and ideas.
http://www.markmeekreligion.blogspot.com/ is my religion blog.
http://www.markmeekcreation.blogspot.com/ is proof that there must be a god.
http://www.mark-meek.blogspot.com/ is my autobiography
http://www.markmeektravel.blogspot.com/ is my travel photos of North America. http://www.markmeekphotos.blogspot.com/ is my travel photos of Europe.
My books can be seen at http://www.bn.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ or, http://www.iuniverse.com/ just do an author search for "Mark Meek"
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Review Of The Natural History Of Niagara Falls
As if the human history of Niagara Falls on both sides of the border is not colorful enough, the natural history of the area is as colorful as the rainbow over the falls. Now, I have more to add to it. Let's begin with a review of the natural history of the Niagara region. This is my understanding of how Niagara came to be.
Around four hundred million years ago, what is now the Niagara region was at the bottom of a warm, shallow sea. Over the millennia, sediment collected on the bottom of the sea. As more sediment collected on top of it, the underlying sediment was compacted by it's weight into solid rock. This gradually formed the shales and sandstones that underlie the region today.
Eventually, small forms of life adapted to the conditions in the sea and their dead bodies were compacted in the same way to form limestones on top of the older, deeper shales and sandstones. The most recent major layer to form was a hard layer of limestone, also known as Lockport dolostone or dolomite.
Due to geological shifting, the sea drained of water and became dry land. Erosion set in. But because some layers of rock were harder and more resistant to erosion than others, erosion was uneven. One result of this is the escarpment at Lewiston-Queenston.
This escarpment is very old, around two hundred million years. It extends all the way from Watertown, NY to Wisconsin. This escarpment was not formed by tectonic shifting but by erosion. Geologists would refer to it as a cuesta. Under the Ontario Plain, the land below the escarpment from Lewiston to Youngstown and from Queenston to Niagara-on-the-Lake lie the very old shales and sandstones formed before life had adapted itself to the sea in which they formed.
The temperature varied due to various factors on earth and possibly, on the sun. It began to get colder to the north of the Niagara region. Eventually, it got cold enough so that the snow left from the last winter would not have melted by the time the next winter's snowfall arrived. Snow began to build up, layer after layer, year after year. The snow at lower levels was compressed into ice by the weight.
A vast sheet of ice formed in the north and began to work it's way southward, sliding due to the centrifugal force of the rotation of the earth. We have what is known as a glacier. The Niagara region experienced many glaciers, known as the Wisconsin Glaciers. The first of the last three arrived more than fifty thousand years ago and lasted for thousands of years. The Niagara area was covered by a sheet of ice that may have been more than a mile thick.
Then it got warmer for thousands of years. The second of the last three glaciers arrived maybe forty thousand years ago and may have lasted for eight thousand years. The most recent arrived about twenty thousand years ago and may have also lasted for eight thousand years. There were, of course, warm periods in between the glaciers.
After the last glacier withdrew, about twelve thousand years ago, water seeking lower ground found it's way from what we call Lake Erie to a point on the escarpment that is now Lewiston and Queenston. Actually, it did not take a very direct route. Excess water from Lake Erie formed a smaller lake to the north that natural historians have named Lake Tonawanda.
This lake was not very deep. It extended over most of what is now Niagara Falls, NY, Grand Island and, extended eastward to Rochester. Although the lake's eastern parts were shallower than it's western end. The deepest part of Lake Tonawanda was the south-western corner around what is now the Horseshoe (or Canadian) Falls. The strata is now slanted toward the southwest at about twenty feet per mile. What we now call Goat Island was probably under about thirty feet of water.
Lake Iroquois was an enlarged version of what is now Lake Ontario, extending all the way to the escarpment. There is a small terrace about thirty feet from the top of the escarpment called Eldridge's Terrace on the American Side and Roy's Terrace on the Canadian side. A terrace is a flat strip of land which interrupts the slope of a hill or escarpment. This terrace is actually a former beach formed by wave action on the surface of Lake Iroquois.
As water found it's way to the edge of the escarpment at what is now Lewiston-Queenston, it drained over the edge and fell about thirty feet into Lake Iroquois. This was the beginning of the falls.
At the time, about ten thousand years ago, this was not the only outlet of Lake Tonawanda to Lake Iroquois. There were actually five altogether. Traces of the others can still be seen on the escarpment today at Lockport, Gasport, Medina and, Holley.
So water draining from the Great Lakes basin flowed from what is now Lake Erie into the smaller Lake Tonawanda and then through those five established routes over the escarpment into Lake Iroquois. Eventually, these other outlets were left high and dry and the Niagara River was the only route that the waters of Lake Tonawanda, and Lake Erie behind it, took to Lake Iroquois.
Lake Iroquois is, of course, an enlarged version of what we now call Lake Ontario. It extended all the way to the escarpment so that what is now Lewiston, Queenston, Youngstown and, Niagara-on-the-Lake were underwater. The other side of the lake is what is now Toronto.
There is no comparable escarpment in Toronto to form the other side of the lake. But if you follow a north-south street northward in Toronto, Yonge St. for example, you will notice that the ground gets higher and higher. This is what once was the northern shore of Lake Iroquois.
When water began pouring over the escarpment from what we now call the Niagara River into Lake Iroquois, another factor came into play. The top layer of rock, the Lockport Dolostone, was much harder and more resistant to erosion than the underlying layers of limestone. The reason for this is that Lockport Dolostone is actually magnesium carbonate, while ordinary limestone is calcium carbonate.
This caused the underlying layers to be eroded by the falling waters more quickly than the top layer. Chunks of the top layer would remain intact but would break off when it's underlying supporting layers were eroded away by the falling water.
The effect of this was that the water always fell straight down, rather than as a sloping rapids, and gradually eroded it's way backward into the escarpment. Niagara Falls had been born.
Not too far from where the falls began, we can see that the level of the lake and the lower river (below the falls) must have been considerably higher than it is now. Smeaton's Ravine is on the Canadian side of the gorge between the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge and the Sir Adam Beck Power Plants. It is about level with the Floral Clock. This ravine is the remains of an old waterfall that poured into the gorge about ten thousand years ago after the falls had eroded it's way southward from where the ravine is now located.
What is interesting about the ravine is that the erosion that the former falls has made in the rock does not go all the way down to the water. The reason why is that the river, and thus Lake Iroquois (now Lake Ontario) was at a much higher level then than it is now.
The gorge, or canyon, that the falls formed when it gradually worked it's way southward to where it is now from where it started at Lewiston-Queenston is narrow around where the power plants on both sides of the border are located. This is because at that time, it was only the water of Lake Erie that was flowing over the falls. The upper lakes had another route to the St. Lawrence River and the sea by river systems further north in Ontario. So, only about 15% of the water that flows over the falls now was flowing then.
The progress of the falls through this section of gorge was a little more complicated than this. For example, at one point a smaller falls separated from the main falls moving southward. But, the main falls overtook the smaller falls and cut it off. The result was an island in this part of the river, similar in principle to today's Goat Island. As the falls moved further, away from this island, it collapsed. The result is what we now call the Niagara Glen on the Canadian side.
As the falls eroded it's way southward, it eventually encountered a buried river gorge from the former geological era, the warm period between the second and third last glaciers to cover the area. Remember that the time since the falls began is following the last, glacier.
In the last warm period before our own, from about 32,000-20,000 years ago, a powerful river flowed from the area Where Lake Erie is now to a break in the escarpment it had eroded at the Canadian village of St. David's, a few kilometers west of Queenston. The river may have been similar to the present Niagara River.
There must have been a falls to carve out the gorge. The last glacier had filled in this river gorge with rocks and other debris. However, the debris with which the glacier filled in this old river gorge was much looser than the sorrounding solid rock. It was more like a landfill and not solid rock.
When the falls encountered this buried river gorge, it had a much easier time digging into it with the force of the falling water. It was so much easier that the falls changed direction to follow the buried river gorge as long as possible. The place where this meeting between the new Niagara River and the buried St. David's River, as it is called, is what we now know as the Whirlpool.
It is very easy to see the sudden change of direction that our Niagara River undertook at this point. We can see that this new direction forms a straight line through the Whirlpool to the vast eroded gap in the escarpment at the village of St. David's. The St. David's River, in the previous warm era, must have been very steep and fast-flowing because the lower river rapids in the Niagara River between the Whirlpool and the Whirlpool Bridge, the section of the former river that our present Niagara River re-excavated.
After the falls had moved southward past the area of the present Whirlpool Bridge, it's natural flow ceased to match the direction of the buried gorge and it continued eroding it's way slowly through solid rock as it had been doing since it encountered the buried gorge. The re-excavation of the buried St. David's Gorge must have been very fast, geologically speaking, compared to the falls working it's way slowly through solid rock.
The reason for the Whirlpool that now exists is that a whirlpool is what a fast-flowing river like the Niagara carves for itself when it makes an abrupt turn for some reason, in this case finding the looser fill of the buried gorge. A fast-flowing river is like a fast car, it cannot just turn on a dime. A whirlpool like ours serves the same purpose as the semi-circular ramps on a highway. A fast-moving car needs it in order to make a turn.
The next significant event in the natural history of the area occurred when the falls had worked it's way southward to Hubbard's Point. This point is a high point on the Canadian side as seen from the American side. The best place to see it is from the Gorge Discovery Center, formerly known as the Schoellkopf Geological Museum. It is built on the former site of the Schoellkopf Power Plant, which collapsed into the river in 1956.
Hubbard's Point is the high point of a ridge. Seen from the American side, it is at the third street north from Michael's Inn on the Canadian side. Michael's Inn is the white building not far north of the Canadian side of the Rainbow Bridge. If you are on the Canadian side, Hubbard's Point is where Eastwood Ct. meets River Rd. You will notice that the point is the high point, the ground on either side is lower.
Hubbard's Point is actually the top of a ridge, known as the Lyell-Johnson Ridge. The falls, working it's way southward, had to cut through this ridge. Since this ridge is the highest point in the falls' journey southward, that means that the surface level of Lake Tonawanda would logically begin to drop after the falls had cut through the ridge at Hubbard's point.
You may notice that the falls is now at the bottom of an ancient valley of which Hubbard's Point is the high point to the north. The falls, eroding it's way southward, cut through the ridge that was at Hubbard's Point about thirty-five hundred years ago.
I saw a diagram in a book depicting the boundaries of Lake Tonawanda. There was no actual map of where the shores of this lake were located relative to the streets of today. So, I went out and looked for the ancient shores myself. It was not difficult to find.
Going north on Military Rd. in the Town of Niagara, it is easy to notice the sudden increase in elevation as you pass K-Mart. This increase in elevation levels off not far north of Packard Rd. and is visible across the northern section of the K-Mart parking lot. When you travel southward on Military Rd. in the Town of Niagara approaching Lockport Rd. and K-Mart, it seems as if you are looking out over a lake. A few thousand years ago, you would have been.
Going north on Walmore Rd. in Wheatfield, the same type of sudden elevation is obvious just before reaching Lockport Rd. The terrain was obviously sculpted during the construction of the railroad bridge. But, the increase in height is unmistakable and is a continuation of the ancient northern shoreline that is also visible in front of K-Mart.
Further east, going north on Buffalo Rd. toward Sanborn, just after passing Lockport Rd., the same kind of sudden elevation is apparent. Although, the elevation increase is obviously becoming less pronounced as we move eastward, away from K-Mart.
Looking across the farms from Lockport Rd. toward Bergholz, the decrease in elevation is noticable as you look southward toward the Niagara River. The same gradual southward slope can also be seen in the LaSalle section of Niagara Falls, NY. When on Niagara Falls Blvd. it is fairly easy to see the southward slope of the land when looking straight down the numbered streets from 77th to 82nd Sts.
The wide Upper Niagara River, from Grand Island to the falls is, of course, the shrunken remains of lake Tonawanda. As we know, the lake began draining from it's northern shore (K-Mart) toward the river of today when the falls finally cut through the ridge at Hubbard's Point about two thousand years ago. Lake Tonawanda had formed after the last glacier withdrew about twelve thousand years ago. The lake extended eastward to the Rochester area.
In Lake Tonawanda, there was an island that natural historians refer to as "Niagara Island". It was near where the American Falls are now. It's former shoreline was also easy to find. On Pine Ave., looking from around where McDonald's is now toward Portage Rd., the increase in elevation is very obvious. Portage Rd. is on what was the eastern shore of Niagara Island. Going north on Portage Rd., toward the Library, it is easily visible that Portage Rd. is on higher ground than 11th St. Looking northward on Main St. from the Niagara Falls Library, it becomes obvious that the ground is getting lower, this represents another former shore of Niagara Island.
This ancient shore can also easily be seen on streets running parallel to Pine Ave., such as Walnut and Ferry Avenues, also just east of Portage Rd. The higher ground on the mainland opposite Goat Island represents another former shore of Niagara Island in Lake Tonawanda.
A final important factor in the area's natural history is what we know as the Niagara Falls Moraine. A moraine is basically a mass of rocks, earth and, debris that is dropped by a glacier after having been gradually picked up elsewhere.
Near where the falls are now, we notice that there is high ground on the Canadian side, upon which the observation towers and the skyscraper hotels are built, but there is really no corresponding high ground on the American side. This high ground extends from the area of the whirlpool to just east of Dufferin Islands.
This moraine is important because it caused the lower river to flow northward instead of westward. If this high ground had not been there, the river may have ended up meeting the escarpment anywhere between St. Catharines and Hamilton.
I have noticed that we only have to look at a map to see signs of how vast was the volume of meltwater from glaciers at the end of the last ice age. A prominent feature of Lake Erie is the Long Point Peninsula extending far out into the lake from the Canadian shore. This peninsula was formed by sediment carried by the rush of water from melting glaciers in the Brantford-Cambridge-Kitchener area.
This peninsula forms a straight line and formed where sediment-laden discharge water from the melting ice sheet decreased in velocity as it mixed with the water of what is now Lake Erie. The peninsula points almost directly eastward from the shore from which it originates. The line which the peninsula forms is clearly a vector line of the discharge flow of the meltwater and the eastward movement of water in the lake.
Here is a map link http://www.maps.google.com/
If the water of Lake Erie had been relatively still at the time of the melting of the glacier, the axis of the Long Point Peninsula would be north-south instead of almost directly east. Since the main direction of the flow of meltwater on land here was southward. We only have to glance at a map of the lake to imagine the furious rush of water through it from melting glaciers further west.
The water from the melting glaciers must have been moving at high speed to be able to carry all of the sediment necessary to form the peninsula, yet the peninsula was pushed almost directly eastward instead of forming along the roughly north-south axis that it would have if Lake Erie was as still as it is today.
The entire lake must have resembled a raging river for at least a while, much like the broad upper Niagara River is today. This effect is possible due to the shallowness of Lake Erie. It is by far the most shallow of the Great Lakes, the eastern Buffalo end is deeper than the western Detroit-Toledo end.
The volume of meltwater from South-Central Ontario into Lake Erie can be estimated by the volume of sediment required to build the Long Point Peninsula. Then, by considering the eastward angle formed by the peninsula in the lake, it will be possible to estimate the former flow of water through Lake Erie and thus get an idea of the scope and depth of the glacier.
Now, back to Niagara Falls and the former Lake Tonawanda. We can see how extremely rapid the flow of water through Lake Erie must have been at the close of the last ice age. There is no evidence in the Niagara Gorge around Lewiston-Queenston of a vastly increased flow of water through in the very early days of the river and the falls. So where did all of this additional water go?
My answer is through the four now-dry outlets of the former Lake Tonawanda, mentioned above, as well as the Niagara River. The present river just happened to be the lowest of the five outlets so when the meltwater from the glacier was gone and the flow of water through Lake Erie diminished toward what it is today, only the Niagara River remained as an outlet for water from the upper Great Lakes over the escarpment.
Around four hundred million years ago, what is now the Niagara region was at the bottom of a warm, shallow sea. Over the millennia, sediment collected on the bottom of the sea. As more sediment collected on top of it, the underlying sediment was compacted by it's weight into solid rock. This gradually formed the shales and sandstones that underlie the region today.
Eventually, small forms of life adapted to the conditions in the sea and their dead bodies were compacted in the same way to form limestones on top of the older, deeper shales and sandstones. The most recent major layer to form was a hard layer of limestone, also known as Lockport dolostone or dolomite.
Due to geological shifting, the sea drained of water and became dry land. Erosion set in. But because some layers of rock were harder and more resistant to erosion than others, erosion was uneven. One result of this is the escarpment at Lewiston-Queenston.
This escarpment is very old, around two hundred million years. It extends all the way from Watertown, NY to Wisconsin. This escarpment was not formed by tectonic shifting but by erosion. Geologists would refer to it as a cuesta. Under the Ontario Plain, the land below the escarpment from Lewiston to Youngstown and from Queenston to Niagara-on-the-Lake lie the very old shales and sandstones formed before life had adapted itself to the sea in which they formed.
The temperature varied due to various factors on earth and possibly, on the sun. It began to get colder to the north of the Niagara region. Eventually, it got cold enough so that the snow left from the last winter would not have melted by the time the next winter's snowfall arrived. Snow began to build up, layer after layer, year after year. The snow at lower levels was compressed into ice by the weight.
A vast sheet of ice formed in the north and began to work it's way southward, sliding due to the centrifugal force of the rotation of the earth. We have what is known as a glacier. The Niagara region experienced many glaciers, known as the Wisconsin Glaciers. The first of the last three arrived more than fifty thousand years ago and lasted for thousands of years. The Niagara area was covered by a sheet of ice that may have been more than a mile thick.
Then it got warmer for thousands of years. The second of the last three glaciers arrived maybe forty thousand years ago and may have lasted for eight thousand years. The most recent arrived about twenty thousand years ago and may have also lasted for eight thousand years. There were, of course, warm periods in between the glaciers.
After the last glacier withdrew, about twelve thousand years ago, water seeking lower ground found it's way from what we call Lake Erie to a point on the escarpment that is now Lewiston and Queenston. Actually, it did not take a very direct route. Excess water from Lake Erie formed a smaller lake to the north that natural historians have named Lake Tonawanda.
This lake was not very deep. It extended over most of what is now Niagara Falls, NY, Grand Island and, extended eastward to Rochester. Although the lake's eastern parts were shallower than it's western end. The deepest part of Lake Tonawanda was the south-western corner around what is now the Horseshoe (or Canadian) Falls. The strata is now slanted toward the southwest at about twenty feet per mile. What we now call Goat Island was probably under about thirty feet of water.
Lake Iroquois was an enlarged version of what is now Lake Ontario, extending all the way to the escarpment. There is a small terrace about thirty feet from the top of the escarpment called Eldridge's Terrace on the American Side and Roy's Terrace on the Canadian side. A terrace is a flat strip of land which interrupts the slope of a hill or escarpment. This terrace is actually a former beach formed by wave action on the surface of Lake Iroquois.
As water found it's way to the edge of the escarpment at what is now Lewiston-Queenston, it drained over the edge and fell about thirty feet into Lake Iroquois. This was the beginning of the falls.
At the time, about ten thousand years ago, this was not the only outlet of Lake Tonawanda to Lake Iroquois. There were actually five altogether. Traces of the others can still be seen on the escarpment today at Lockport, Gasport, Medina and, Holley.
So water draining from the Great Lakes basin flowed from what is now Lake Erie into the smaller Lake Tonawanda and then through those five established routes over the escarpment into Lake Iroquois. Eventually, these other outlets were left high and dry and the Niagara River was the only route that the waters of Lake Tonawanda, and Lake Erie behind it, took to Lake Iroquois.
Lake Iroquois is, of course, an enlarged version of what we now call Lake Ontario. It extended all the way to the escarpment so that what is now Lewiston, Queenston, Youngstown and, Niagara-on-the-Lake were underwater. The other side of the lake is what is now Toronto.
There is no comparable escarpment in Toronto to form the other side of the lake. But if you follow a north-south street northward in Toronto, Yonge St. for example, you will notice that the ground gets higher and higher. This is what once was the northern shore of Lake Iroquois.
When water began pouring over the escarpment from what we now call the Niagara River into Lake Iroquois, another factor came into play. The top layer of rock, the Lockport Dolostone, was much harder and more resistant to erosion than the underlying layers of limestone. The reason for this is that Lockport Dolostone is actually magnesium carbonate, while ordinary limestone is calcium carbonate.
This caused the underlying layers to be eroded by the falling waters more quickly than the top layer. Chunks of the top layer would remain intact but would break off when it's underlying supporting layers were eroded away by the falling water.
The effect of this was that the water always fell straight down, rather than as a sloping rapids, and gradually eroded it's way backward into the escarpment. Niagara Falls had been born.
Not too far from where the falls began, we can see that the level of the lake and the lower river (below the falls) must have been considerably higher than it is now. Smeaton's Ravine is on the Canadian side of the gorge between the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge and the Sir Adam Beck Power Plants. It is about level with the Floral Clock. This ravine is the remains of an old waterfall that poured into the gorge about ten thousand years ago after the falls had eroded it's way southward from where the ravine is now located.
What is interesting about the ravine is that the erosion that the former falls has made in the rock does not go all the way down to the water. The reason why is that the river, and thus Lake Iroquois (now Lake Ontario) was at a much higher level then than it is now.
The gorge, or canyon, that the falls formed when it gradually worked it's way southward to where it is now from where it started at Lewiston-Queenston is narrow around where the power plants on both sides of the border are located. This is because at that time, it was only the water of Lake Erie that was flowing over the falls. The upper lakes had another route to the St. Lawrence River and the sea by river systems further north in Ontario. So, only about 15% of the water that flows over the falls now was flowing then.
The progress of the falls through this section of gorge was a little more complicated than this. For example, at one point a smaller falls separated from the main falls moving southward. But, the main falls overtook the smaller falls and cut it off. The result was an island in this part of the river, similar in principle to today's Goat Island. As the falls moved further, away from this island, it collapsed. The result is what we now call the Niagara Glen on the Canadian side.
As the falls eroded it's way southward, it eventually encountered a buried river gorge from the former geological era, the warm period between the second and third last glaciers to cover the area. Remember that the time since the falls began is following the last, glacier.
In the last warm period before our own, from about 32,000-20,000 years ago, a powerful river flowed from the area Where Lake Erie is now to a break in the escarpment it had eroded at the Canadian village of St. David's, a few kilometers west of Queenston. The river may have been similar to the present Niagara River.
There must have been a falls to carve out the gorge. The last glacier had filled in this river gorge with rocks and other debris. However, the debris with which the glacier filled in this old river gorge was much looser than the sorrounding solid rock. It was more like a landfill and not solid rock.
When the falls encountered this buried river gorge, it had a much easier time digging into it with the force of the falling water. It was so much easier that the falls changed direction to follow the buried river gorge as long as possible. The place where this meeting between the new Niagara River and the buried St. David's River, as it is called, is what we now know as the Whirlpool.
It is very easy to see the sudden change of direction that our Niagara River undertook at this point. We can see that this new direction forms a straight line through the Whirlpool to the vast eroded gap in the escarpment at the village of St. David's. The St. David's River, in the previous warm era, must have been very steep and fast-flowing because the lower river rapids in the Niagara River between the Whirlpool and the Whirlpool Bridge, the section of the former river that our present Niagara River re-excavated.
After the falls had moved southward past the area of the present Whirlpool Bridge, it's natural flow ceased to match the direction of the buried gorge and it continued eroding it's way slowly through solid rock as it had been doing since it encountered the buried gorge. The re-excavation of the buried St. David's Gorge must have been very fast, geologically speaking, compared to the falls working it's way slowly through solid rock.
The reason for the Whirlpool that now exists is that a whirlpool is what a fast-flowing river like the Niagara carves for itself when it makes an abrupt turn for some reason, in this case finding the looser fill of the buried gorge. A fast-flowing river is like a fast car, it cannot just turn on a dime. A whirlpool like ours serves the same purpose as the semi-circular ramps on a highway. A fast-moving car needs it in order to make a turn.
The next significant event in the natural history of the area occurred when the falls had worked it's way southward to Hubbard's Point. This point is a high point on the Canadian side as seen from the American side. The best place to see it is from the Gorge Discovery Center, formerly known as the Schoellkopf Geological Museum. It is built on the former site of the Schoellkopf Power Plant, which collapsed into the river in 1956.
Hubbard's Point is the high point of a ridge. Seen from the American side, it is at the third street north from Michael's Inn on the Canadian side. Michael's Inn is the white building not far north of the Canadian side of the Rainbow Bridge. If you are on the Canadian side, Hubbard's Point is where Eastwood Ct. meets River Rd. You will notice that the point is the high point, the ground on either side is lower.
Hubbard's Point is actually the top of a ridge, known as the Lyell-Johnson Ridge. The falls, working it's way southward, had to cut through this ridge. Since this ridge is the highest point in the falls' journey southward, that means that the surface level of Lake Tonawanda would logically begin to drop after the falls had cut through the ridge at Hubbard's point.
You may notice that the falls is now at the bottom of an ancient valley of which Hubbard's Point is the high point to the north. The falls, eroding it's way southward, cut through the ridge that was at Hubbard's Point about thirty-five hundred years ago.
I saw a diagram in a book depicting the boundaries of Lake Tonawanda. There was no actual map of where the shores of this lake were located relative to the streets of today. So, I went out and looked for the ancient shores myself. It was not difficult to find.
Going north on Military Rd. in the Town of Niagara, it is easy to notice the sudden increase in elevation as you pass K-Mart. This increase in elevation levels off not far north of Packard Rd. and is visible across the northern section of the K-Mart parking lot. When you travel southward on Military Rd. in the Town of Niagara approaching Lockport Rd. and K-Mart, it seems as if you are looking out over a lake. A few thousand years ago, you would have been.
Going north on Walmore Rd. in Wheatfield, the same type of sudden elevation is obvious just before reaching Lockport Rd. The terrain was obviously sculpted during the construction of the railroad bridge. But, the increase in height is unmistakable and is a continuation of the ancient northern shoreline that is also visible in front of K-Mart.
Further east, going north on Buffalo Rd. toward Sanborn, just after passing Lockport Rd., the same kind of sudden elevation is apparent. Although, the elevation increase is obviously becoming less pronounced as we move eastward, away from K-Mart.
Looking across the farms from Lockport Rd. toward Bergholz, the decrease in elevation is noticable as you look southward toward the Niagara River. The same gradual southward slope can also be seen in the LaSalle section of Niagara Falls, NY. When on Niagara Falls Blvd. it is fairly easy to see the southward slope of the land when looking straight down the numbered streets from 77th to 82nd Sts.
The wide Upper Niagara River, from Grand Island to the falls is, of course, the shrunken remains of lake Tonawanda. As we know, the lake began draining from it's northern shore (K-Mart) toward the river of today when the falls finally cut through the ridge at Hubbard's Point about two thousand years ago. Lake Tonawanda had formed after the last glacier withdrew about twelve thousand years ago. The lake extended eastward to the Rochester area.
In Lake Tonawanda, there was an island that natural historians refer to as "Niagara Island". It was near where the American Falls are now. It's former shoreline was also easy to find. On Pine Ave., looking from around where McDonald's is now toward Portage Rd., the increase in elevation is very obvious. Portage Rd. is on what was the eastern shore of Niagara Island. Going north on Portage Rd., toward the Library, it is easily visible that Portage Rd. is on higher ground than 11th St. Looking northward on Main St. from the Niagara Falls Library, it becomes obvious that the ground is getting lower, this represents another former shore of Niagara Island.
This ancient shore can also easily be seen on streets running parallel to Pine Ave., such as Walnut and Ferry Avenues, also just east of Portage Rd. The higher ground on the mainland opposite Goat Island represents another former shore of Niagara Island in Lake Tonawanda.
A final important factor in the area's natural history is what we know as the Niagara Falls Moraine. A moraine is basically a mass of rocks, earth and, debris that is dropped by a glacier after having been gradually picked up elsewhere.
Near where the falls are now, we notice that there is high ground on the Canadian side, upon which the observation towers and the skyscraper hotels are built, but there is really no corresponding high ground on the American side. This high ground extends from the area of the whirlpool to just east of Dufferin Islands.
This moraine is important because it caused the lower river to flow northward instead of westward. If this high ground had not been there, the river may have ended up meeting the escarpment anywhere between St. Catharines and Hamilton.
I have noticed that we only have to look at a map to see signs of how vast was the volume of meltwater from glaciers at the end of the last ice age. A prominent feature of Lake Erie is the Long Point Peninsula extending far out into the lake from the Canadian shore. This peninsula was formed by sediment carried by the rush of water from melting glaciers in the Brantford-Cambridge-Kitchener area.
This peninsula forms a straight line and formed where sediment-laden discharge water from the melting ice sheet decreased in velocity as it mixed with the water of what is now Lake Erie. The peninsula points almost directly eastward from the shore from which it originates. The line which the peninsula forms is clearly a vector line of the discharge flow of the meltwater and the eastward movement of water in the lake.
Here is a map link http://www.maps.google.com/
If the water of Lake Erie had been relatively still at the time of the melting of the glacier, the axis of the Long Point Peninsula would be north-south instead of almost directly east. Since the main direction of the flow of meltwater on land here was southward. We only have to glance at a map of the lake to imagine the furious rush of water through it from melting glaciers further west.
The water from the melting glaciers must have been moving at high speed to be able to carry all of the sediment necessary to form the peninsula, yet the peninsula was pushed almost directly eastward instead of forming along the roughly north-south axis that it would have if Lake Erie was as still as it is today.
The entire lake must have resembled a raging river for at least a while, much like the broad upper Niagara River is today. This effect is possible due to the shallowness of Lake Erie. It is by far the most shallow of the Great Lakes, the eastern Buffalo end is deeper than the western Detroit-Toledo end.
The volume of meltwater from South-Central Ontario into Lake Erie can be estimated by the volume of sediment required to build the Long Point Peninsula. Then, by considering the eastward angle formed by the peninsula in the lake, it will be possible to estimate the former flow of water through Lake Erie and thus get an idea of the scope and depth of the glacier.
Now, back to Niagara Falls and the former Lake Tonawanda. We can see how extremely rapid the flow of water through Lake Erie must have been at the close of the last ice age. There is no evidence in the Niagara Gorge around Lewiston-Queenston of a vastly increased flow of water through in the very early days of the river and the falls. So where did all of this additional water go?
My answer is through the four now-dry outlets of the former Lake Tonawanda, mentioned above, as well as the Niagara River. The present river just happened to be the lowest of the five outlets so when the meltwater from the glacier was gone and the flow of water through Lake Erie diminished toward what it is today, only the Niagara River remained as an outlet for water from the upper Great Lakes over the escarpment.
The Mystery Of Niagara Falls
There is a real mystery concerning the ceaseless flow of water over Niagara Falls. I have written quite a bit about my new findings in the natural history of the Niagara area. The mystery which we will explore today is not about the nature of the falls themselves or the area, but is about why the falls exist at all.
Just stop and think about it. A tremendous amount of water keeps pouring over these falls. Where does this water come from and why does it's flow never stop? These are questions about the falls that never seem to be asked. So much of what I write online is not the answering of questions that no one else can answer, but the asking of questions that no one else has asked.
The water that goes over Niagara Falls comes, of course, from the upper Great Lakes. The Niagara River brings water from Lake Erie, which is connected to Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and, Lake Superior. This is certainly no mystery.
But for water to keep pouring over the falls while the water levels of the upper lakes remains constant can only mean that there is excess water coming from somewhere. Many tons of water evaporate from the Great Lakes every second. Most of that water falls within the lakes' watershed and goes right back into the lakes.
Since the Great Lakes are essentially a closed water system, how can there be the excess water which goes over Niagara Falls?
First, we need to examine the winds around the Great Lakes. The world has bands of prevailing winds by latitude. The earth rotates eastward so that the prevailing winds around the equator are from the east.
North and south of that zone, further away from the equator, the prevailing winds counter the equatorial direction so that they are from the west. Going further north and south, the prevailing winds are once again around the poles the winds tend to be from the east, the Polar Easterlies.
On a map showing Hudson Bay in northern Canada, we can see that there are many more rivers flowing into the bay from the west, than the east. This is because the prevailing winds at that latitude are from the east and they pick up water from the bay and drop it to the west, where it flows back in.
The fact that the prevailing wind is from the west, rather than the east, is very important to the Great Lakes, and to Niagara Falls. The beginnings of the Mississippi River are not far east of the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. The way I see it, if the prevailing wind were from the east it would pick up a lot of water from the lakes and drop it into the Mississippi River watershed. This would greatly diminish the volume of water in the lakes and there would be no excess water to go over Niagara Falls.
Fortunately for Niagara, most of the water that is removed from the upper Great Lakes by the west wind ends up back in the lakes' watershed when it falls as precipitation and eventually goes over the falls.
There are exceptions to this. One example is the water which evaporates from the upper lakes and falls into the watershed of Lake Ontario, the one "lower" lake downstream from the falls. Water which follows this route circumvents the falls. This includes water which enters Lake Ontario by rivers other than the Niagara. The Genesee River collects rainwater and snowmelt and empties into Lake Ontario at Rochester. On the Canadian side, the Humber River at Toronto and the Trent River further east, also represent water from the upper lakes which has gotten into Lake Ontario without going over the falls.
Incidentally, the reason that the gorge of the Niagara River gets narrower north of the whirlpool is because the Trent River system once drained the upper Great Lakes across Ontario and during this time, it was only Lake Erie which was draining through the Niagara River. The flow was less and thus this section of the gorge is narrower. I have not discovered this, it is already known.
Where I live, I notice that a south wind very rarely brings precipitation. This means that a wind from the south will be warm and dry and will thus pick up quite a bit of moisture from the lakes. We can see on a map that if we go a considerable distance north of the Great Lakes, the rivers flow northward, toward Hudson Bay. The lakes certainly do lose some water in this direction in the summer.
There is one other major route of water out of the Great Lakes. This is the Ohio River. It is easy to find this river on a map because it starts at Pittsburgh, with the joining of two smaller rivers, and forms the western border of West Virginia and the northern border of Kentucky.
Notice how the Ohio River almost always froms an approximate midpoint between the Great Lakes and the Appalaichan Mountains. This river drains into the Mississippi River and is a counduit for water that has evaporated from the Great Lakes and has fallen as precipitation south of the line from which it would have flowed back into the lakes.
So, water leaves the upper Great Lakes via the Ohio River, when it evaporates and falls outside the lakes' watershed to the south. It ends up in the watershed of Lake Ontario, without going over the falls, when it evaporates from the upper lakes and falls far enough to the west. More water is lost from the lakes when the warm, dry south wind of summer carries evaporated lake water far enough north to fall in the watershed of Hudson Bay.
But still, there is enough excess water coming into the upper lakes to create the flow over Niagara Falls. Where does this water come from?
An east wind bringing a lot of water with it from the Atlantic Ocean would be mostly blocked by the Appalaichan Mountains. The south winds in the Great Lakes region are mostly dry. The prevailing wind in the area is from the west, but the American west is also known for it's dryness.
As it turns out, both Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes are dependent on what goes on in a region to which few people give much thought.
In the north of Canada, direcly north of the Great Lakes in fact, is the wide expanse of Hudson Bay. Sorrounding Hudson Bay is low and swampy ground that is just about as vast as the bay itself. Few people live around Hudson Bay and really not many people have ever seen it, but tourists to Niagara Falls and residents of the entire Great Lakes region might want to give it a brief thought of appreciation because it is absolutely vital to the lakes.
Not only is Hudson Bay and the sorrounding swamp a source of water to the Great Lakes by way of evaporation, there are an fantastic number of small lakes, carved by glaciers, in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba to the west. A really amazing fact is that about half of the surface area of both of these two vast provinces is either lake or swamp. And both lakes and swamps contribute water into the air by evaporation.
We can see by the river systems in the far north of Ontario that most of the water which evaporates from Hudson Bay and falls as precipitation ends up back in the bay, because it falls within it's watershed. But if any of this water gets far enough south before falling, it will fall into the Great Lakes watershed. Hudson Bay tends to freeze over during the winter, so this evaporation must take place during the warmer months.
So, not only is there no mystery about why there is the excess of water in the Great Lakes which flows over Niagara Falls, it can actually be broken down into a fairly simple and accurate formula.
A = B - (C + D + E)
Where A is the flow of water over the falls, as well as that which is diverted for the generation of electricity.
B is the water which evaporates from Hudson Bay, the sorrounding swamp land and, the lakes in Ontario and Manitoba to the north and northwest of the Great Lakes, and which falls as precipitation within the Great Lakes watershed.
C is the water which evaporates from the Great Lakes and it's watershed and is carried northward so that it falls in the Hudson Bay watershed.
D is the water which evaporates from the upper Great Lakes and falls as precipitation in the watershed of Lake Ontario. D is approximately equal to the flow of water in the St. Lawrence River minus that in the Niagara River.
E is the water which evaporates from the Great Lakes and it's watershed and falls as precipitation in the watershed of the Ohio River to the south.
Thus we can say that the Great Lakes, the largest system of fresh water in the world, is a product of both Hudson Bay to the north and the Appalaichan Mountains to the east and south.
To have a look at the falls and sorrounding cities go to http://www.multimap.com/
Just stop and think about it. A tremendous amount of water keeps pouring over these falls. Where does this water come from and why does it's flow never stop? These are questions about the falls that never seem to be asked. So much of what I write online is not the answering of questions that no one else can answer, but the asking of questions that no one else has asked.
The water that goes over Niagara Falls comes, of course, from the upper Great Lakes. The Niagara River brings water from Lake Erie, which is connected to Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and, Lake Superior. This is certainly no mystery.
But for water to keep pouring over the falls while the water levels of the upper lakes remains constant can only mean that there is excess water coming from somewhere. Many tons of water evaporate from the Great Lakes every second. Most of that water falls within the lakes' watershed and goes right back into the lakes.
Since the Great Lakes are essentially a closed water system, how can there be the excess water which goes over Niagara Falls?
First, we need to examine the winds around the Great Lakes. The world has bands of prevailing winds by latitude. The earth rotates eastward so that the prevailing winds around the equator are from the east.
North and south of that zone, further away from the equator, the prevailing winds counter the equatorial direction so that they are from the west. Going further north and south, the prevailing winds are once again around the poles the winds tend to be from the east, the Polar Easterlies.
On a map showing Hudson Bay in northern Canada, we can see that there are many more rivers flowing into the bay from the west, than the east. This is because the prevailing winds at that latitude are from the east and they pick up water from the bay and drop it to the west, where it flows back in.
The fact that the prevailing wind is from the west, rather than the east, is very important to the Great Lakes, and to Niagara Falls. The beginnings of the Mississippi River are not far east of the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. The way I see it, if the prevailing wind were from the east it would pick up a lot of water from the lakes and drop it into the Mississippi River watershed. This would greatly diminish the volume of water in the lakes and there would be no excess water to go over Niagara Falls.
Fortunately for Niagara, most of the water that is removed from the upper Great Lakes by the west wind ends up back in the lakes' watershed when it falls as precipitation and eventually goes over the falls.
There are exceptions to this. One example is the water which evaporates from the upper lakes and falls into the watershed of Lake Ontario, the one "lower" lake downstream from the falls. Water which follows this route circumvents the falls. This includes water which enters Lake Ontario by rivers other than the Niagara. The Genesee River collects rainwater and snowmelt and empties into Lake Ontario at Rochester. On the Canadian side, the Humber River at Toronto and the Trent River further east, also represent water from the upper lakes which has gotten into Lake Ontario without going over the falls.
Incidentally, the reason that the gorge of the Niagara River gets narrower north of the whirlpool is because the Trent River system once drained the upper Great Lakes across Ontario and during this time, it was only Lake Erie which was draining through the Niagara River. The flow was less and thus this section of the gorge is narrower. I have not discovered this, it is already known.
Where I live, I notice that a south wind very rarely brings precipitation. This means that a wind from the south will be warm and dry and will thus pick up quite a bit of moisture from the lakes. We can see on a map that if we go a considerable distance north of the Great Lakes, the rivers flow northward, toward Hudson Bay. The lakes certainly do lose some water in this direction in the summer.
There is one other major route of water out of the Great Lakes. This is the Ohio River. It is easy to find this river on a map because it starts at Pittsburgh, with the joining of two smaller rivers, and forms the western border of West Virginia and the northern border of Kentucky.
Notice how the Ohio River almost always froms an approximate midpoint between the Great Lakes and the Appalaichan Mountains. This river drains into the Mississippi River and is a counduit for water that has evaporated from the Great Lakes and has fallen as precipitation south of the line from which it would have flowed back into the lakes.
So, water leaves the upper Great Lakes via the Ohio River, when it evaporates and falls outside the lakes' watershed to the south. It ends up in the watershed of Lake Ontario, without going over the falls, when it evaporates from the upper lakes and falls far enough to the west. More water is lost from the lakes when the warm, dry south wind of summer carries evaporated lake water far enough north to fall in the watershed of Hudson Bay.
But still, there is enough excess water coming into the upper lakes to create the flow over Niagara Falls. Where does this water come from?
An east wind bringing a lot of water with it from the Atlantic Ocean would be mostly blocked by the Appalaichan Mountains. The south winds in the Great Lakes region are mostly dry. The prevailing wind in the area is from the west, but the American west is also known for it's dryness.
As it turns out, both Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes are dependent on what goes on in a region to which few people give much thought.
In the north of Canada, direcly north of the Great Lakes in fact, is the wide expanse of Hudson Bay. Sorrounding Hudson Bay is low and swampy ground that is just about as vast as the bay itself. Few people live around Hudson Bay and really not many people have ever seen it, but tourists to Niagara Falls and residents of the entire Great Lakes region might want to give it a brief thought of appreciation because it is absolutely vital to the lakes.
Not only is Hudson Bay and the sorrounding swamp a source of water to the Great Lakes by way of evaporation, there are an fantastic number of small lakes, carved by glaciers, in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba to the west. A really amazing fact is that about half of the surface area of both of these two vast provinces is either lake or swamp. And both lakes and swamps contribute water into the air by evaporation.
We can see by the river systems in the far north of Ontario that most of the water which evaporates from Hudson Bay and falls as precipitation ends up back in the bay, because it falls within it's watershed. But if any of this water gets far enough south before falling, it will fall into the Great Lakes watershed. Hudson Bay tends to freeze over during the winter, so this evaporation must take place during the warmer months.
So, not only is there no mystery about why there is the excess of water in the Great Lakes which flows over Niagara Falls, it can actually be broken down into a fairly simple and accurate formula.
A = B - (C + D + E)
Where A is the flow of water over the falls, as well as that which is diverted for the generation of electricity.
B is the water which evaporates from Hudson Bay, the sorrounding swamp land and, the lakes in Ontario and Manitoba to the north and northwest of the Great Lakes, and which falls as precipitation within the Great Lakes watershed.
C is the water which evaporates from the Great Lakes and it's watershed and is carried northward so that it falls in the Hudson Bay watershed.
D is the water which evaporates from the upper Great Lakes and falls as precipitation in the watershed of Lake Ontario. D is approximately equal to the flow of water in the St. Lawrence River minus that in the Niagara River.
E is the water which evaporates from the Great Lakes and it's watershed and falls as precipitation in the watershed of the Ohio River to the south.
Thus we can say that the Great Lakes, the largest system of fresh water in the world, is a product of both Hudson Bay to the north and the Appalaichan Mountains to the east and south.
To have a look at the falls and sorrounding cities go to http://www.multimap.com/
Dufferin Islands And The Former St. David's River
I am expanding this posting to include my observations on the significance of the location of the forebay of the historic Adams Power Plant, in Niagara Falls, NY, which has recently been in the news.
THE FORMATION OF THE EMBAYMENT AT DUFFERIN ISLANDS
I have come to the conclusion that the place where the falls at Niagara are now located was actually below ground level in the warm period before the last ice age. This was because the so-called Niagara Falls Moraine, having been deposited in the area by glacial movement in ice ages and seen today as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls, extended further eastward in the warm period prior to the last ice age.
The key to understanding how we can know this is the embayment at Dufferin Islands, some distance upstream from the falls on the Canadian side. This is one thing about Niagara natural history that really stands out as requiring special explanation. What was it that could have formed the so-called "embayment" at Dufferin Islands? Looking on a topographical map or satellite photos, the embayment looks just about identical in both size and shape to the whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge. The only difference is that the whirlpool is much deeper.
Here is the map and satellite imagery link that I use: http://www.maps.google.com/ .
Just what created the embayment at Dufferin Islands? The whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge is what the river carved out for itself in order to make a abrupt change of direction, in that case because it met the looser fill of the St. David's River Gorge that had been buried by the last glacier. The lower Niagara River that carved the whirlpool is much narrower than the upper river at Dufferin Islands. Therefore, it had much more force concentrated on a limited area.
THE EMBAYMENT AT DUFFERIN ISLANDS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN FORMED BY ANY WATER DIVERSION FROM THE RIVER
As far as I can see, there is absolutely no sign of anything in the upper river, above the falls, near Dufferin Islands that would have diverted the very powerful stream of water southwestward that would have been required to carve out this embayment. Some people may say that something which formerly existed in the upper river near Dufferin Islands diverted the flowing water to carve the embayment. After careful thought, I cannot believe that for five reasons.
First, there is absolutely no trace of anything in the upper river near the embayment at Dufferin Islands which would cause such a diversion. If there was, it would have to have been made of very solid rock to divert the powerful stream to carve the embayment without out being worn away itself. If it was made of such solid rock and had been large enough to cause such a diversion, we should clearly see some remains of it today, yet we do not. The so-called Green Cascade, the low waterfall above the main falls that you can get near at the outermost of the Three Sisters Islands, stretches right across the river and points at Dufferin Islands, but that is a drop rather than a barrier and would in no way divert a narrow, powerful stream of water at Dufferin Islands. The Green Cascade can be seen in the satellite imagery as the white line of the Upper Rapids that is furthest east from the brink of the falls.
Second, we can see that the entire terrace on which Queen Victoria Park is now located was carved by flowing water after having been compacted by ice sliding westward across the slope of the rock strata. But that terrace bears no resemblence to the embayment at all. The park terrace follows a very wide curve, the embayment, a very tight curve.
Third, remember that until a few thousand years ago, the water level in the upper river near Dufferin Islands was at a much higher level than it is now, as a lake instead of a river. It began to drop only when the falls, eroding it's way southward, broke through the ridge at Hubbard's Point, causing the former Lake Tonawanda to drain. Simple physics tells us that in this case, the fast flow of water in the upper river, around what is now Dufferin Islands, would be mainly at the surface of the then-lake. The water at depths would be more stationary.
Thus, even if there was something in the river to divert the water to carve the embayment, it would not have had sufficient force to do so because the volume of water in the river would have been too large relative to the amount going over the falls to have had much force. At this time it was called Lake Tonawanda, not the Niagara River. The fact that it was called a lake implies clearly that the water was flowing very slowly or not at all.
Fourth, there is actually another mass in the upper Niagara River that diverts fast-flowing water. It is known as Goat Island. Yet, we see no sign of any kind of embayment forming on the shore of the mainland around Goat Island.
Fifth, it may be said that it would take a lesser force of water to carve the embayment at Dufferin Islands than to carve the whirlpool because the embayment is carved into a glacial moraine of relatively loose debris while the whirlpool is carved into solid rock. Yet, this is not accurate. The whirlpool in the gorge formed when the falls, eroding it's way southward, met the buried St. David's River Gorge from the previous warm era between the glaciers. The very reason that the river abruptly changes direction at this point is that the glacial debris filling the former river gorge was much looser than the surrounding rock layers.
Therefore, the whirlpool must have been carved from much the same type of material as the embayment at Dufferin Islands. Since the embayment is similar to the whirlpool in size and shape, we can logically conclude that it took fast-flowing water of similar velocity and volume to carve both.
The whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge is, of course, much deeper than the embayment at Dufferin Islands. But that can easily be explained by the hard layer of Lockport dolostone that causes the falls to exist. As the falls cuts it's way backward through the underlying limestone strata, this hard upper layer gradually breaks off in pieces so that a waterfall forms instead of a long and sloping rapids. The whirlpool was carved below this layer while the embayment was carved above this layer and was prevented from eroding deeper by this layer.
So, how did the embayment at Dufferin Islands form then? It is obvious that the embayment was once a whirlpool and we know that a whirlpool forms when a narrow and fast-flowing river has a reason to suddenly change direction. If the angle of the change of direction is great enough, a whirlpool is carved out to accommodate the water's abrupt change of direction.
THE FORMER ST. DAVID'S RIVER AND THE EMBAYMENT AT DUFFERIN ISLANDS
One glance at a map shows us that the course of the former gorge of the St. David's River, which the present Niagara River began following when it encountered the buried former gorge at what is now the whirlpool, also forms a line with the Green Cascade and Dufferin Islands. On Goat Island, it can be seen that there is a dip in the ground level in a line that continues from the Green Cascade. My conclusion then, is that the embayment at Dufferin Islands was once part of the St. David's River in the previous warm era before the last ice age.
However, that obviously cannot be a complete answer. Dufferin Islands does not look like a river gorge, it is an embayment or a former whirlpool. It must have been where a fast-flowing river once changed direction. A river formed, carrying water from what is now Lake Erie, flowing southwest along the approximate route of what is now Packard Road in Niagara Falls, NY. This was the warm era before ours and so the former Lake Tonawanda was not there. Since Niagara Falls, NY was originally named Manchester, after the industrial city of Manchester, England, I wish to name this the Manchester River.
The reason that this river took such a roundabout route is that we know that the Niagara Falls Moraine once extended much further eastward, and this drainage would have had to go around the moraine. The river changed direction in order to change the flow from the southwestward slope of the underlying rock layers in the area to the northward direction to empty into what is now Lake Ontario, and the whirlpool that formed to accommodate the sudden change of direction formed the present Dufferin Islands Embayment. The rest of the river flows from there to the Niagara Escarpment at the Ontario village of St. David's. The Manchester River is actually the branch of this river upstream from what is now Dufferin Islands.
That is the most logical, in fact the only logical, reason I can think of for the formation of the embayment.
WHY DID THE DUFFERIN ISLANDS EMBAYMENT FORM WHERE IT DID?
But then the next question is why the embayment at Dufferin Islands formed where it did. If we can see that the river at the area of the falls today occupies the valley that I have pointed out as the Niagara Valley that now hosts the falls, why didn't the St. David's River in the previous warm era, before the last ice age, also occupy that valley. Why would this embayment form some distance upstream from the lowest point of the valley?
There is a very simple and obvious answer. The Niagara Falls Moraine, seen today as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls, extended further eastward. The St. David's River, downstream from it's change of direction at Dufferin Islands ran along the edge of the moraine. This line is marked today by the Green Cascade, extending across the Niagara River from Dufferin Islands, and the extending dip in the ground level on Goat Island, adjacent to the "Three Sister islands" and in a line with the Green Cascade.
The great masses of ice during the last ice age, sliding across the westward slope of the rock layers in the area, pushed the soil of the moraine westward to where it is now as the high ground on the Canadian side. It is this slope that creates the rapids above the falls, and can be easily seen on the American side around the falls area. In the posting "Why Are There Two Falls At Niagara"?, I explained how one such berg of ice must have slid down the southward slope in the LaSalle area of Niagara Falls, NY, carved Burnt Ship Creek on Grand Island, then slid along the westward slope to carve the ground away where the American Falls would later form.
So, this scenario provides a neat explanation of how the mysterious embayment at Dufferin Islands was formed and how it connects to what we know as the former St. David's River and why it is some distance upstream from where the low point of the valley which hosts the falls lies. This was at the edge of the Niagara Falls Moraine, and this means that what is now the falls was below ground level before the moraine was compacted to it's present position by the westward sliding movement of glacial ice across the rock strata of what is now the Upper Rapids at the end of the last ice age.
THE ADAMS POWER PLANT FOREBAY
The old Adams Power Plant, in Niagara Falls NY, has been in the local news recently. This was the world's first large-scale alternating current generating plant, according to the article on www.wikipedia.org "Adams Power Plant Transformer House".
The thing that has long caught my attention about this former power generating plant, most of which is no longer standing, is that the remaining section of it's forebay, through which water entered from the Niagara River to generate electricity by falling through a tunnel to the level of the lower river below the falls, points directly to the embayment of Dufferin Islands on the Canadian side of the river. This forebay can easily be seen in the satellite imagery on the U.S. side, between the river shore and a highway, some distance east of the eastern end of Goat Island.
The forebay of the power plant, most of which has been filled in but can be seen in one of the photos in the Wikipedia article, is located exactly where we would expect the Manchester River, the section of the St. David's River upstream from the embayment at Dufferin Islands, to have been. Water flowed along this route to the embayment at Dufferin Islands, where it changed direction and continued along the St. David's River through what is now the whirlpool and to the escarpment at the village of St. David's. This drainage route still exists across Niagara Falls, NY, althgough much reduced in water volume. After the last ice age and the draining of the former Lake Tonawanda, it was manifested again as Gill Creek.
My speculation is that when the Adams Power Plant was built, in 1895, the builders made use of a line along which the rock strata had been eroded away by this former river in order to speed construction of the forebay. This could be the reason that the power plant was located exactly where it was.
There was precedence in the area, during the Nineteenth Century, of making use of existing natural waterways in canal construction. The Erie Canal was dug as far as Tonawanda Creek, and then the creek became the canal. The two separated at North Tonawanda, near the Niagara River. Tonawanda Creek flowed into the river while the Erie Canal continued toward Buffalo along what is now the broad stretch of Niagara Street in Tonawanda (where Tops is located). The canal ran right alongside the river, with one of the canal's towpaths separating the two, until the canal was filled in as far as the towpath to form Niawanda Park. The Erie Canal continued from there, to Buffalo, along the route which is now occupied by the Interstate 190 Highway.
THE FORMATION OF THE EMBAYMENT AT DUFFERIN ISLANDS
I have come to the conclusion that the place where the falls at Niagara are now located was actually below ground level in the warm period before the last ice age. This was because the so-called Niagara Falls Moraine, having been deposited in the area by glacial movement in ice ages and seen today as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls, extended further eastward in the warm period prior to the last ice age.
The key to understanding how we can know this is the embayment at Dufferin Islands, some distance upstream from the falls on the Canadian side. This is one thing about Niagara natural history that really stands out as requiring special explanation. What was it that could have formed the so-called "embayment" at Dufferin Islands? Looking on a topographical map or satellite photos, the embayment looks just about identical in both size and shape to the whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge. The only difference is that the whirlpool is much deeper.
Here is the map and satellite imagery link that I use: http://www.maps.google.com/ .
Just what created the embayment at Dufferin Islands? The whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge is what the river carved out for itself in order to make a abrupt change of direction, in that case because it met the looser fill of the St. David's River Gorge that had been buried by the last glacier. The lower Niagara River that carved the whirlpool is much narrower than the upper river at Dufferin Islands. Therefore, it had much more force concentrated on a limited area.
THE EMBAYMENT AT DUFFERIN ISLANDS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN FORMED BY ANY WATER DIVERSION FROM THE RIVER
As far as I can see, there is absolutely no sign of anything in the upper river, above the falls, near Dufferin Islands that would have diverted the very powerful stream of water southwestward that would have been required to carve out this embayment. Some people may say that something which formerly existed in the upper river near Dufferin Islands diverted the flowing water to carve the embayment. After careful thought, I cannot believe that for five reasons.
First, there is absolutely no trace of anything in the upper river near the embayment at Dufferin Islands which would cause such a diversion. If there was, it would have to have been made of very solid rock to divert the powerful stream to carve the embayment without out being worn away itself. If it was made of such solid rock and had been large enough to cause such a diversion, we should clearly see some remains of it today, yet we do not. The so-called Green Cascade, the low waterfall above the main falls that you can get near at the outermost of the Three Sisters Islands, stretches right across the river and points at Dufferin Islands, but that is a drop rather than a barrier and would in no way divert a narrow, powerful stream of water at Dufferin Islands. The Green Cascade can be seen in the satellite imagery as the white line of the Upper Rapids that is furthest east from the brink of the falls.
Second, we can see that the entire terrace on which Queen Victoria Park is now located was carved by flowing water after having been compacted by ice sliding westward across the slope of the rock strata. But that terrace bears no resemblence to the embayment at all. The park terrace follows a very wide curve, the embayment, a very tight curve.
Third, remember that until a few thousand years ago, the water level in the upper river near Dufferin Islands was at a much higher level than it is now, as a lake instead of a river. It began to drop only when the falls, eroding it's way southward, broke through the ridge at Hubbard's Point, causing the former Lake Tonawanda to drain. Simple physics tells us that in this case, the fast flow of water in the upper river, around what is now Dufferin Islands, would be mainly at the surface of the then-lake. The water at depths would be more stationary.
Thus, even if there was something in the river to divert the water to carve the embayment, it would not have had sufficient force to do so because the volume of water in the river would have been too large relative to the amount going over the falls to have had much force. At this time it was called Lake Tonawanda, not the Niagara River. The fact that it was called a lake implies clearly that the water was flowing very slowly or not at all.
Fourth, there is actually another mass in the upper Niagara River that diverts fast-flowing water. It is known as Goat Island. Yet, we see no sign of any kind of embayment forming on the shore of the mainland around Goat Island.
Fifth, it may be said that it would take a lesser force of water to carve the embayment at Dufferin Islands than to carve the whirlpool because the embayment is carved into a glacial moraine of relatively loose debris while the whirlpool is carved into solid rock. Yet, this is not accurate. The whirlpool in the gorge formed when the falls, eroding it's way southward, met the buried St. David's River Gorge from the previous warm era between the glaciers. The very reason that the river abruptly changes direction at this point is that the glacial debris filling the former river gorge was much looser than the surrounding rock layers.
Therefore, the whirlpool must have been carved from much the same type of material as the embayment at Dufferin Islands. Since the embayment is similar to the whirlpool in size and shape, we can logically conclude that it took fast-flowing water of similar velocity and volume to carve both.
The whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge is, of course, much deeper than the embayment at Dufferin Islands. But that can easily be explained by the hard layer of Lockport dolostone that causes the falls to exist. As the falls cuts it's way backward through the underlying limestone strata, this hard upper layer gradually breaks off in pieces so that a waterfall forms instead of a long and sloping rapids. The whirlpool was carved below this layer while the embayment was carved above this layer and was prevented from eroding deeper by this layer.
So, how did the embayment at Dufferin Islands form then? It is obvious that the embayment was once a whirlpool and we know that a whirlpool forms when a narrow and fast-flowing river has a reason to suddenly change direction. If the angle of the change of direction is great enough, a whirlpool is carved out to accommodate the water's abrupt change of direction.
THE FORMER ST. DAVID'S RIVER AND THE EMBAYMENT AT DUFFERIN ISLANDS
One glance at a map shows us that the course of the former gorge of the St. David's River, which the present Niagara River began following when it encountered the buried former gorge at what is now the whirlpool, also forms a line with the Green Cascade and Dufferin Islands. On Goat Island, it can be seen that there is a dip in the ground level in a line that continues from the Green Cascade. My conclusion then, is that the embayment at Dufferin Islands was once part of the St. David's River in the previous warm era before the last ice age.
However, that obviously cannot be a complete answer. Dufferin Islands does not look like a river gorge, it is an embayment or a former whirlpool. It must have been where a fast-flowing river once changed direction. A river formed, carrying water from what is now Lake Erie, flowing southwest along the approximate route of what is now Packard Road in Niagara Falls, NY. This was the warm era before ours and so the former Lake Tonawanda was not there. Since Niagara Falls, NY was originally named Manchester, after the industrial city of Manchester, England, I wish to name this the Manchester River.
The reason that this river took such a roundabout route is that we know that the Niagara Falls Moraine once extended much further eastward, and this drainage would have had to go around the moraine. The river changed direction in order to change the flow from the southwestward slope of the underlying rock layers in the area to the northward direction to empty into what is now Lake Ontario, and the whirlpool that formed to accommodate the sudden change of direction formed the present Dufferin Islands Embayment. The rest of the river flows from there to the Niagara Escarpment at the Ontario village of St. David's. The Manchester River is actually the branch of this river upstream from what is now Dufferin Islands.
That is the most logical, in fact the only logical, reason I can think of for the formation of the embayment.
WHY DID THE DUFFERIN ISLANDS EMBAYMENT FORM WHERE IT DID?
But then the next question is why the embayment at Dufferin Islands formed where it did. If we can see that the river at the area of the falls today occupies the valley that I have pointed out as the Niagara Valley that now hosts the falls, why didn't the St. David's River in the previous warm era, before the last ice age, also occupy that valley. Why would this embayment form some distance upstream from the lowest point of the valley?
There is a very simple and obvious answer. The Niagara Falls Moraine, seen today as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls, extended further eastward. The St. David's River, downstream from it's change of direction at Dufferin Islands ran along the edge of the moraine. This line is marked today by the Green Cascade, extending across the Niagara River from Dufferin Islands, and the extending dip in the ground level on Goat Island, adjacent to the "Three Sister islands" and in a line with the Green Cascade.
The great masses of ice during the last ice age, sliding across the westward slope of the rock layers in the area, pushed the soil of the moraine westward to where it is now as the high ground on the Canadian side. It is this slope that creates the rapids above the falls, and can be easily seen on the American side around the falls area. In the posting "Why Are There Two Falls At Niagara"?, I explained how one such berg of ice must have slid down the southward slope in the LaSalle area of Niagara Falls, NY, carved Burnt Ship Creek on Grand Island, then slid along the westward slope to carve the ground away where the American Falls would later form.
So, this scenario provides a neat explanation of how the mysterious embayment at Dufferin Islands was formed and how it connects to what we know as the former St. David's River and why it is some distance upstream from where the low point of the valley which hosts the falls lies. This was at the edge of the Niagara Falls Moraine, and this means that what is now the falls was below ground level before the moraine was compacted to it's present position by the westward sliding movement of glacial ice across the rock strata of what is now the Upper Rapids at the end of the last ice age.
THE ADAMS POWER PLANT FOREBAY
The old Adams Power Plant, in Niagara Falls NY, has been in the local news recently. This was the world's first large-scale alternating current generating plant, according to the article on www.wikipedia.org "Adams Power Plant Transformer House".
The thing that has long caught my attention about this former power generating plant, most of which is no longer standing, is that the remaining section of it's forebay, through which water entered from the Niagara River to generate electricity by falling through a tunnel to the level of the lower river below the falls, points directly to the embayment of Dufferin Islands on the Canadian side of the river. This forebay can easily be seen in the satellite imagery on the U.S. side, between the river shore and a highway, some distance east of the eastern end of Goat Island.
The forebay of the power plant, most of which has been filled in but can be seen in one of the photos in the Wikipedia article, is located exactly where we would expect the Manchester River, the section of the St. David's River upstream from the embayment at Dufferin Islands, to have been. Water flowed along this route to the embayment at Dufferin Islands, where it changed direction and continued along the St. David's River through what is now the whirlpool and to the escarpment at the village of St. David's. This drainage route still exists across Niagara Falls, NY, althgough much reduced in water volume. After the last ice age and the draining of the former Lake Tonawanda, it was manifested again as Gill Creek.
My speculation is that when the Adams Power Plant was built, in 1895, the builders made use of a line along which the rock strata had been eroded away by this former river in order to speed construction of the forebay. This could be the reason that the power plant was located exactly where it was.
There was precedence in the area, during the Nineteenth Century, of making use of existing natural waterways in canal construction. The Erie Canal was dug as far as Tonawanda Creek, and then the creek became the canal. The two separated at North Tonawanda, near the Niagara River. Tonawanda Creek flowed into the river while the Erie Canal continued toward Buffalo along what is now the broad stretch of Niagara Street in Tonawanda (where Tops is located). The canal ran right alongside the river, with one of the canal's towpaths separating the two, until the canal was filled in as far as the towpath to form Niawanda Park. The Erie Canal continued from there, to Buffalo, along the route which is now occupied by the Interstate 190 Highway.
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