| Seneca Lake | |
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 Aerial view from the southern part of Seneca Lake. | |
  Seneca Lake Location within New York Show map of New York Adirondack Park Seneca Lake Seneca Lake (the United States) Show map of the United States | |
| Location | Schuyler,Seneca,Yates, andOntario counties,New York,United States |
| Group | Finger Lakes |
| Coordinates | 42°39′20″N76°53′51″W / 42.65556°N 76.89750°W /42.65556; -76.89750 |
| Type | Ground moraine |
| Primary inflows | Catharine Creek,Keuka Lake Outlet,underwater sources |
| Primary outflows | Seneca River/Cayuga-Seneca Canal |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Max. length | 38 mi (61 km) |
| Surface area | 66.9 sq mi (173 km2) |
| Average depth | 292 ft (89 m) |
| Max. depth | 618 ft (188 m) |
| Water volume | 3.81 cu mi (15.9 km3) |
| Shore length1 | 75.4 miles (121.3 km) |
| Surface elevation | 446 ft (136 m) |
| Settlements | Watkins Glen,Geneva |
| 1 Shore length isnot a well-defined measure. | |
Seneca Lake is aFinger Lake in centralNew York state. Spanning four counties -Schuyler,Seneca,Yates, andOntario - it is the largest of the eleven lake glacial chain, and the deepest glacial lake entirely within the state.[citation needed]
Seneca Lake is 38 miles (61 km) long, has a surface area of 66.9 square miles (173 km2), a maximum depth of over 618 feet (188 m), and holds the most water of all the Finger Lakes (estimated at 3.81 cubic miles (15.9 km3), roughly half that of the entire chain).[1]
Seneca is promoted as thelake trout capital of the world, and is host of the National Lake Trout Derby. Because of its depth and relative ease of access, the US Navy uses the lake to perform test and evaluation of equipment ranging from single element transducers to complex sonar arrays and systems.[2]
The lake takes its name from theSeneca people, who inhabited the land until driven off it by westward colonial expansion. At the north end is the city ofGeneva, home ofHobart and William Smith Colleges and theNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station, a division ofCornell University. At the south end of the lake is the village ofWatkins Glen, famed for auto racing (hostingWatkins Glen International racetrack) andwaterfalls.
Seneca Lake's uniquemacroclimate makes it home to over 50wineries, many of themfarm wineries, and is the location of theSeneca Lake AVA and theSeneca Lake wine trail.
At 38 miles (61 km) long, it is the second longest of the Finger Lakes and has the largest volume, estimated at 3.81 cubic miles (15.9 km3), roughly half of the water in all the Finger Lakes. It has an average depth of 291 feet (89 m),[3] a maximum depth of 618 feet (188 m), and a surface area of 66.9 square miles (173 km2).
For comparison, Scotland's famousLoch Ness is 22.5 miles (36.2 km) long, 1.7 miles (2.7 km) wide, has a surface area of 21.8 square miles (56 km2), an average depth of 433 feet (132 m), a maximum depth of 744.6 feet (227.0 m), and total volume of 1.8 cubic miles (7.5 km3) of water.
Seneca's two main inlets areCatharine Creek at the southern end and theKeuka Lake Outlet. Seneca Lake drains into theSeneca River/Cayuga-Seneca Canal, which joins Seneca andCayuga Lakes at their northern ends.
It is fed by underground springs and replenished at a rate of 328,000 US gal (1,240 m3) per minute. These springs keep the water moving in a circular motion, giving it little chance to freeze over. Because of Seneca Lake's great depth temperature near the bottom remains remain a near-constant 39 °F (4 °C).[4]
Seneca lake has a typical aquatic population for large deep lakes in the northeast, with coldwater fish such as lake trout and Landlocked Atlantic salmon inhabiting the deeper waters, and warmwater fish such as smallmouth bass and yellow perch inhabiting shallower areas. The lake is also home to a robust population of "sawbellies," the local term foralewife shad.
Seneca Lake was formed at least two million years ago by glacial carving of streams and valleys. Originally it was a part of a series of rivers that flowed northward. Around this time many continental glaciers moved into the area and started the Pleistocene glaciation also known as the Ice Age. It is presumed that the Finger Lakes were created by many advances and retreats of massive glaciers that were up to 2 miles (3 km) thick.[5]
Over 200 years ago, there wereIroquois villages on Seneca Lake's surrounding hillsides. During theAmerican Revolutionary War, their villages, includingKanadaseaga ("Seneca Castle"), were wiped out during the 1779Sullivan Expedition.
After the war, the Iroquois were forced to cede their land when Britain was defeated. Their millions of acres were sold and some lands in this area were granted to veterans of the army in payment for their military service. A slow stream of European-American settlers began to arrive circa 1790. Initially the settlers were without a market nearby or a way to get their crops to market. The settlers' isolation ended in 1825 with the opening of theErie Canal.
The canal linked the Finger Lakes Region to the outside world. Steamships, barges and ferries quickly plied the lake. The earlier, shortCrooked Lake Canal linked Seneca Lake toKeuka Lake.
Numerous canal barges sank during operations and rest on the bottom of the lake. A collection of barges at the southwest end of the lake, near the village ofWatkins Glen, are being preserved and made accessible forscuba diving by theFinger Lakes Underwater Preserve Association.
The lake is a popular fishing destination. Fish species in the lake includelake trout,rainbow trout,brown trout,landlocked salmon,largemouth bass,smallmouth bass,northern pike,pickerel, andyellow perch.[6]
In July 1900, newspaper reports[7] carried reports that on the evening of 14 July 1899, the steamboat Otetiani, carrying several dozen passengers, encountered a 25-foot-long[7] sea monster with "two rows of sharp, white teeth." The steamer is said to have given chase to the creature and deliberately rammed it at full speed. The creature was struck by the ship's paddle wheel midway between head and tail, it spine broken. It raised its four-foot-long head, then gave a gasp as it died. The ship attempted to rope the monster and tow it back to shore, but it sank to the bottom of Seneca Lake.[8][9] A report sometime later in theGeneva Gazette suggested that the incident was a hoax.[9]
Highly visible painted rocks located at the southern end of the lake on the eastern cliff face depicting anAmerican flag,teepee, and several Native Americans painted in 1929 during the Sullivan Sesquicentennial, celebrating the 150th anniversary of theSullivan Expedition that drove Native Americans off their land. They contain the errors that peoples in the Seneca Region usedlonghouses and not tee-pees,[10] and is unfurled to the left, which is never portrayed that way for exhibition.[11]
Some older paintings located on the bottom of the cliff were done somewhat earlier, for tourists on Seneca Lake boat tours,[12] who were given the mythology that they had been done in 1779 after the Senecas escaped from the Sullivan Campaign. Historian Barbara Bell, has cleared this up in her 2005 book.
Seneca Lake is also the site of strange and currently unexplained cannon-like booms and shakes that are heard and felt in the surrounding area.[13] They are known locally as the Seneca Guns, Lake Drums, or Lake Guns, and these types of phenomena are known elsewhere asskyquakes. The termlake guns originated in the short story "The Lake Gun" byJames Fenimore Cooper in 1851.[14] While there is no explanation that takes into account sounds the Iroquois heard before Cooper's time, it is possible sonic booms have been mistaken for natural sounds in modern days.[15]
The east side of Seneca Lake was once home to Sampson Naval Base, a military training ground primarily used during World War II. It becameSampson Air Force Base during theKorean War and was used forbasic training. After Sampson AFB closed, the airfield remained as Seneca Army Airfield until closed in 2000.[16] The training grounds of Sampson have since been converted to a civilian picnic area calledSampson State Park.[17]
TheNaval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Sonar test facility is a US Navy facility on the west side of the lake. A scale model of the sonar section of the nuclear submarineUSS Seawolf (SSN 21) was tested during the ship's development,[18] leading to its launch in June 1995.
There is aYSI EMM-2500 Buoy Platform located in the north end of Seneca Lake roughly in the center. Itscoordinates are: latitude: 42°41'49.99"N, longitude: 76°55'29.93"W. The buoy hascellular modem communications and measures wind speed and direction, relative humidity, air temperature, barometric pressure,light intensity, and the water's depth and temperature, conductivity,turbidity, andchlorophyll-a levels.[19]
The buoy was initially deployed in June 2006. The water depth where it is located is about 200 feet (60 m).[20]
On June 30, 2022, theNew York State Department of Environmental Conservation denied a request for anair permit for a natural gas power plant owned byGreenidge Generation, abitcoinmining company, on the lake used for powering an 8,000-machine operation which the company argued had no legal basis and would challenge in court in a press statement.[21][22]
Viticulture andwinemaking in the area date back to the 1866 foundation of the Seneca Lake Wine Company, the first major local winery. Modern wine production began in the 1970s with the establishment of several wineries and the passage of theNew York Farm Winery Act of 1976.[23] The region was established as anAmerican Viticultural Area in 1988.[24]
The Seneca Lake Wine Trail hosts many events on and around the lake, including the annual winter 'Deck the Halls' event showcasing local wineries' vintages.
TheElmira & Seneca Lake Railway opened for operation on 19 June 1900 fromHorseheads, New York, to Seneca Lake. An active railroad track still runs along the west side of the lake from Watkins Glen to Geneva and beyond, operated byFinger Lakes Railway.
The new Cayuga Lake wine region was established inside the existing Fingers Lake wine region and includes parts of Seneca, Tompkins, and Cayuga counties located adjacent to Cayuga Lake between Seneca and Owasco Lakes.
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