Geologic controls on the sources of water to Lake George, Southeastern Adirondack Mountains of New York
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Rensselaer Fresh Water Inst.
Lake George is a long, deep, fault-bounded lake in the Adirondack Mountains, with relatively undeformed Paleozoic sediments in its valley floor and fractured high-grade meta-igneous and meta-sedimentary Proterozoic rocks in the drainage basins's upland. Overlying these rocks is a thin mantle of glacial deposits, consisting of sandy tills, kamic sands and glacio-lacustrine clays. Stratified ice-contact deposits and glacio-lacustrine deposits are generally restricted to the basins's lower elevations. The configuration of fractured bedrock and glacial overburden deposits of varying hydraulic conductivities suggests a variety of potential hydrogeologic flow routes, which can be generally categorized as reflect near-surface and deep groundwater flow systems. A hydrologic survey of the lake suggests that groundwater contributes approximately 20% to Lake George's annual hydrologic budget, with precipitation directly onto the lake's surface and tributary streamflow comprising the remaining 25% and 55%, respectively. Separating streamflow responses to precipitation by formal inversion into quick-, intermediate-, and slow-recession curves (originating from soils, unconsolidated surficial deposits, and fractured bedrock, respectively) suggests that as much as 40 to 50% of the tributary streamflow during the summer of 1988 originated from the slowest return route, a similar percentage has followed the intermediate route, and less than 10% of the streamflow originated as soil water ( runoff''). The flow-partitioning calculations typically suggest decay constants for these exponential recession curves on the order of 1, 10, and 100 days for the quick-, intermediate-, and slow-flow components to tributary streamflow, respectively.
- OSTI ID:
- 5596385
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9303211-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 25:2; Conference: 28. annual Geological Society of America (GSA) Northeastern Section meeting, Burlington, VT (United States), 22-24 Mar 1993; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
58 GEOSCIENCES
LAKES
DRAINAGE
NEW YORK
WATERSHEDS
RUNOFF
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY
HYDROLOGY
MORAINES
APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
MASS TRANSFER
MOUNTAINS
NORTH AMERICA
SURFACE WATERS
USA
540350* - Environment
Aquatic- Site Resource & Use Studies- (1990-)
580000 - Geosciences