Introduction

During the 1980s, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), mapped the hydrogeologic framework, aquifer boundaries, potentiometric surface, well locations, and aquifer thickness of many major aquifers in the State (“Primary and Principal aquifers” as designated by NYSDEC). Since 1983, NYSDEC has been the sole cooperating State agency in this aquifer mapping program. To date, more than 40 aquifer map reports have been published. These reports have been used by New York State to develop aquifer protection programs and support many NYSDEC Division of Water activities, including delineation of contributing areas to wells, assessing potential aquifer vulnerability from point and nonpoint contaminant sources, responding to contaminant spills or leaks from underground fuel storage facilities, and providing information to assess permit applications for land uses that may affect the principal and primary aquifers. This study of the sand and gravel aquifers associated with the Fairport-Lyons glacial-stream channel (Griswold, 1951) (hereinafter referred to as the “Fairport-Lyons channel”) and intersecting subsidiary channels in Wayne County and parts of Ontario and Seneca Counties (hereinafter referred to as the “Fairport-Lyons channel system”) is the latest report from this long-term cooperative effort between the USGS and the NYSDEC.

Many of the communities (fig. 1) that were founded along the Erie Canal (plate 1) in southern Wayne County during the early 19th century have undergone significant development and population growth since their establishment; the Erie Canal is one of four canals that compose the New York State Barge Canal (National Park Service, 2021). The primary source of groundwater in southern Wayne County (New York State Department of Health, 1982) (table 1) is derived mostly from wells that tap sand and gravel aquifers associated with the Fairport-Lyons channel system, whereas domestic supplies rely on wells drilled into shallow bedrock or scattered glaciofluvial gravel deposits. The hydrogeologic setting in this area—the Ontario Lowlands—is different from the dissected Appalachian Plateau to the south in that productive sand and gravel aquifers within and among the drumlin fields in Wayne County are relatively scarce. Because of this, the Wayne County Water and Sewer Authority was created in 1987 by State legislation to coordinate and manage the consolidation of water supply and transmission within Wayne County and to plan for future improvements to enhance water availability within the county (Wayne County Water and Sewer Authority, 2016). Since its creation, the authority has diversified its water supplies to rely more on surface-water supplies, such as Lake Ontario and Canandaigua Lake, and less on groundwater supplies for its water service areas.

The study area (fig. 1) includes the areas covered by the 1:24,000-scale quadrangle maps of Macedon, Palmyra, Newark, and Lyons, which encompass southern Wayne County and the northern parts of Ontario and Seneca Counties, N.Y. The Fairport-Lyons channel is a west-east-oriented bedrock channel that served as an outlet for glacial Lake Dawson (Fairchild, 1909), which occupied the Genesee Valley and the western end of the present-day Lake Ontario basin when the retreating ice margin was in northern Wayne County near Rochester toward the end of the Pleistocene. Glacial meltwater eroded this shallow channel into the underlying bedrock, and the channel was subsequently partly filled with glaciofluvial sand and gravel and fine-grained lacustrine sediments. These glaciofluvial deposits provide the only large supplies of groundwater in Wayne County under confined and unconfined conditions. The largest reported well yield in Wayne County is 1,200 gallons per minute (gal/min) from an industrial supply well in the Fairport-Lyons channel near Newark, N.Y. (Griswold, 1951). Crain (1974) reported that gravel aquifers in much of the Fairport-Lyons channel system are thin and shallow; however, in three areas—east of Macedon, N.Y., at Newark, and at Lyons—the aquifer thickness is sufficient to support groundwater yields adequate for municipal and industrial use, in part because of induced infiltration from the Erie Canal (plate 2).

Data Sources and Methods

Well records from well inventories associated with earlier USGS groundwater studies of Wayne and parts of Seneca and Ontario Counties (Griswold, 1951; Crain, 1974) were compared with existing well entries in the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) database (U.S. Geological Survey, 2021), and corrections were made, as needed, for location, elevation, construction details, well yields, and water levels by using data from original well inventory field maps and inventory forms. More recent well data, supplied by the NYSDEC’s Water Well Program, were verified as to location and added to the NWIS database; the driller’s logs from these wells were also added to each well’s respective geographic information system attributes. Logs of test borings located along State highways and the Erie Canal were supplied by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). These data were verified as to location and land-surface elevation and were added to the NWIS database.

Geologic and driller’s logs from the well data were used in constructing six hydrogeologic sections that illustrate the distribution of glacial deposits and the general water table position from which unconfined and confined aquifers within the study area can be inferred (plate 2). The well records compiled for the study area are detailed in a U.S. Geological Survey data release (Reynolds and others, 2022). The surficial geology and areas with aquifer potential depicted in plate 1 were delineated from well data, Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) digital data (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2008), and light detection and ranging (lidar) imagery.

Deglacial History

The deglaciation of Wayne County, N.Y., has produced many notable glacial landforms, including drumlins, beach ridges, and drainage channels. Central New York was the location of numerous glacial lake stages that abutted the southern terminus of the receding Ontario ice lobe. Fairchild (1909) postulated a series of 10 successively lower glacial lakes in central New York. These lake stages were

The Fairport-Lyons channel begins at Fairport, N.Y., about 5 mi west of the present study area, at an average elevation of 480 ft, and ends 26 mi away at Lyons, at an elevation of 400 ft. During the Lake Dawson phase, there were three lake outlets at Fairport, with elevations ranging from 462 to 483 ft (Muller and others, 1988). All three of these outlets join to the east of Fairport and were probably briefly functioning simultaneously. The lowest channel, at an elevation of 462 ft, was the last to cease flowing when recession of the ice margin resulted in abandonment of the Fairport-Lyons channel; part of the Erie Canal crosses this abandoned part of the channel. East of Palmyra, the channel splits but reunites 1 mi further east, then immediately divides again and surrounds a drumlin field about 3 mi in diameter, reuniting 2 mi northwest of Newark. This northern branch of the Fairport-Lyons channel now carries Ganargua Creek and is filled with till and lacustrine sediments. Fairchild (1909) cites this northern channel as an example of a meltwater channel created from previous meltwater episodes (pre-Lake Dawson) that did not carry the large volumes of water from the Lake Dawson drainage episode (Fairchild, 1909). Withdrawal of the ice margin further north presumably allowed Lake Dawson to expand somewhat west beyond Rochester, N.Y. (Fairchild, 1909). Before the ice margin could recede much farther, however, Lake Dawson was succeeded by the earliest phase of Lake Iroquois that was expanding westward in the Lake Ontario basin (Muller and Prest, 1985). Fairchild (1909) describes an arm of Lake Iroquois that backed up into the Fairport-Lyons channel as far west as Palmyra. As the ice front receded north of the Fairport-Lyons channel, meltwater draining southward though inter-drumlin channels carried fine-grained sediments eroded from till and deposited them as lacustrine sediments into this arm of Lake Iroquois that occupied the Fairport-Lyons channel. This resulted in as much as 40 ft of silt and clay in some places being deposited over previously deposited sand and gravel.

As the continental ice sheet retreated northward from the Appalachian Plateau, subglacial channels (which had previously transmitted pressurized meltwater southward to major valleys on the Plateau) continued to function. Sand and gravel were deposited along these channels to form eskers and associated ice-contact landforms. Two lines of nearly continuous ice-contact deposits that now extend from north to south across the study area, one through Palmyra and the other through Newark (plate 1), mark the route of two persistent subglacial channels. Similar subparallel north-south lines of ice-contact deposits are found across the Ontario Lowlands (Randall, 2001); the locus of gravel deposition within these subglacial channels shifted northward ahead of the retreating ice margin, while finer sediments generally were deposited in proglacial lakes beyond the ice margin. Scant records of wells in these two lines of ice-contact deposits were assembled for this study, but it appears that the sand and gravel is largely unsaturated in most places.

In the southern part of the Macedon quadrangle, several areas that are mapped as sand and gravel have flat surfaces ranging from 570 to 600 ft in elevation. These areas lie immediately north of inter-drumlin valleys or saddles that open southward into a broad valley with a flat swampy floor at about 575 ft in elevation, and this broad valley is drained eastward by Black Brook into Canandaigua Outlet. To the west, this broad valley aligns with another broad valley segment, also at about 570 ft in elevation, just south of Victor, N.Y., which is about 10 mi southwest of the study area. This valley also aligns to the west on the Honeoye Falls quadrangle (west of the study area) with another broad east-west valley with a flat floor at 570–580 ft in elevation; both valleys are now drained eastward and westward by small streams. These now-abandoned east-west channel segments compose the Batavia-Victor channel, which was a predecessor to the Fairport-Lyons channel. An ice dam or temporary moraine dam in this channel impounded a large proglacial lake in the western Lake Ontario lowland and Lake Erie lowland, whose water surface was no less than 570 ft in elevation (Fairchild, 1909). The sand and gravel areas mapped in the southern Macedon and southwestern Palmyra quadrangles are mostly kame deltas (or subaquatic fans) built into ponded water at elevations controlled by water levels in the Batavia-Victor channel and deposited somewhat later than the ice-contact deposits mapped nearby, which formed in crevasses when most of the landscape was still ice-covered. Eventually the exposure of the saddle into the Mohawk River Basin at Rome led to the establishment of proglacial Lake Iroquois and the lowering of base level in the Macedon/Palmyra/Newark quadrangles by about 100 ft; drainage southward to the Batavia-Victor channel ceased, and kame deltas were built at 510 ft in elevation near Macedon, declining eastward and later decreasing to elevations of 430–420 ft.

Northward retreat of the ice sheet exposed spillways at Fairport at elevations ranging from 483 to 462 ft (Muller and others, 1988). The elevation of a large proglacial lake that extended westward from Fairport about 100 mi or more was abruptly lowered about 100 ft (Fairchild, 1909), which presumably generated a large, prolonged flood through these new spillways, thus carving the Fairport-Lyons channel.

Surficial Geology

Plate 1 is a map of the surficial geology (the unconsolidated glacial and postglacial sediments above bedrock) in the four 7.5-minute quadrangles that compose the study area (Macedon, Palmyra, Newark, and Lyons). The surficial geology was compiled primarily from SSURGO data (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2008) and well log data and was augmented from published and unpublished field maps on file with the USGS and a recently published map by the New York State Geological Survey (Bird and Kozlowski, 2014a). The parent material codes in the digital soils data were plotted at 1:24,000 for each quadrangle and were color coded to represent the major surficial geologic units. The boundaries of these units were then adjusted as needed, based on comparisons with well logs and with lidar shaded relief and elevation data. Figure 2 also shows the location of a probable past ice margin.

Aquifers Within the Fairport-Lyons Channel System and Adjacent Areas

Groundwater supply has historically been obtained from a variety of sources within the study area as described in figure 3, but public and industrial supply has largely been limited to (1) unconfined aquifers in glaciofluvial deposits associated with large areas in and along the largest channels or where those channels discharged into standing water bodies, and (2) confined channel aquifers of glaciofluvial or ice-contact deposits located beneath fine-grained lacustrine deposits. Potentially favorable and proven aquifer areas within these deposits are outlined on plate 1. Local domestic wells tap a greater variety of deposits with modest water yields. Historically, dug wells tapped gravelly zones within till, thinly saturated unconfined ice-contact deposits, or shallow jointed bedrock in addition to the more productive sources mentioned previously. In areas located some distance from permeable channel deposits, most present-day domestic wells are completed in bedrock. A few domestic wells are completed in confined sand and gravel deposits immediately above bedrock and beneath glacial till within and between drumlins; such wells are highlighted in yellow on plate 1, and the deposits are depicted in hydrogeologic sections C–C′ and E–E′ on plate 2 and in figure 3.

The Fairport-Lyons channel system was identified as a potential source of large groundwater supplies in Wayne County by Griswold (1951). However, a subsequent study by Crain (1974) which involved a reexamination of available well logs and logs of additional test borings drilled in 1966, established that unconsolidated sediments in the channel are generally thin, such that bedrock is within a few feet of land surface. However, the deposits of sand and gravel are generally thick enough to support substantial groundwater withdrawals in three places: at Lyons, at Newark, and in small areas east of Macedon (plate 1). Evidence from previously published reports and logs of wells and test borings indicate that there is not one single sand and gravel aquifer that occupies the intersecting incised channels that extend for 26 mi from Fairport, through Lyons, to the broad lowland near Clyde. Rather, sand and gravel deposited by southward-flowing meltwater streams, inferred to have flowed largely during the Lake Dawson drainage episode, are interbedded with fine-grained lacustrine silt and clay and can be regarded as separate aquifer units within the Fairport-Lyons channel system. In some areas, notably at Macedon, a surficial sand and gravel aquifer overlies till and lacustrine deposits. Elsewhere, notably northeast of Lyons, a large sand delta produced by Lake Dawson water debouching into the Clyde River valley (Fairchild, 1909) provides groundwater to many individual residences (plate 1; plate 2, section F–Fʹ). The subsidiary east-west drainage channels that are tributaries to the main Fairport-Lyon channel, such as those northeast of Macedon, between Palmyra and Newark, northeast of Newark, and northeast of Lyons, are predominantly filled with fine-grained lacustrine sediments that overlie till and bedrock. As such, these minor channels are mostly devoid of appreciable sand and gravel aquifers, except what are probably localized, stratified ice-contact deposits.

Griswold (1951) reported that sand and gravel deposits furnish the only large supplies of groundwater that are satisfactory for general use in Wayne County, and that the average depth of 82 wells that were completed in these deposits was 46 ft, with an average yield of 103 gal/min. The highest reported well yield of any well completed in the Fairport-Lyons channel is 1,200 gal/min from well WN-118, located at Newark (Crain, 1974). This well is 50 ft deep, with a 15-inch (in.)-diameter casing, and was completed with a gravel-packed well screen. Induced infiltration from the Erie Canal is probably responsible for the high well yield. Figure 3 shows the generalized occurrence of these sediment types in cross section and their relative potential as groundwater resources in the study area. A more detailed discussion of the distribution and character of these separate sand and gravel aquifers, by specific area, follows.

Bedrock Aquifer

In the study area, the Fairport-Lyons channel system is underlain by shales of the Salina Group and the Lockport Dolomite. Two shale units of the Salina Group—the Camillus Shale and the underlying Vernon Shale (of Clarke, 1903)—underlie the middle and southern parts of the study area. The Lockport Dolomite, a hard rock composed largely of magnesium carbonate, underlies the northernmost part of the study area (Davis, 1941). Gillette (1940) reports that the Vernon and Camillus Shales are similar in physical properties and color, and that both are soft, structurally weak rocks that are composed of gray, green, and red shales. The Camillus and Vernon Shales contain extensive beds of gypsum and salt, both of which are very soluble in water. Crain (1974) suggests that all of the salt and much of the gypsum have been dissolved out of the Camillus and Vernon Shales in their respective outcrop areas and for some distance south of the outcrop areas. This removal of soluble salt and gypsum results in large solution cavities in the shales; however, shales are structurally weak, so collapse of shale overlying these cavities is common, which results in partial filling of the cavities but also causes additional fracturing of the shales (Crain, 1974). The additional fracturing and dissolution of salt and gypsum layers result in fairly high well yields for domestic wells completed in these two shale units. Griswold (1951) reported that the average yield of 101 wells in Wayne County that were completed in the Camillus and Vernon Shales was 31 gal/min, with the highest reported yield being 400 gal/min for a commercial well (WN-11). The average depth of the wells inventoried in the Camillus and Vernon Shales was 100 ft.

The dissolution of these salt and gypsum beds within the Vernon and Camillus Shales has resulted in a high dissolved mineral content of groundwater from these two rock units, which makes the water quality unsatisfactory for use as drinking water in most places. Goodman and others (2011) report that while salt beds of the Salina Group are preserved south of the Onondaga Escarpment, upper units of the Salina Group, such as the Camillus and Vernon Shales, have been thoroughly leached by post-Pleistocene and modern-day actively circulating groundwater. Undesirable amounts of hydrogen sulfide, salt, and iron are present in varying amounts in groundwater from the Vernon and Camillus Shales. Wells deeper than 100 ft generally intersect layers of salt, which produce water with high chloride content (brine), and layers of gypsum (calcium sulfate), which are responsible for high noncarbonate hardness levels. For example, well WN-546 is a 371-ft-deep, 8-in.-diameter production brine well for Lyons, which has a yield of 600 gal/min. The well is completed in shale beds of the Salina Formation and produces water with a chloride level of as much as 21,000 milligrams per liter. In contrast, most bedrock wells that produce satisfactory water for drinking penetrate less than 30 ft of bedrock (Griswold, 1951). Driller’s logs of some wells and test borings that penetrate the Camillus and Vernon Shales report that the upper surface of the rock has weathered to clay, to a depth of as much as 10 ft, and that it is difficult to distinguish the weathered shale from any overlying lacustrine silt and clay units. This condition is illustrated in sections D–D′ and E–E′ on plate 2.

Summary

The most productive zone of aquifers within the study area is associated with the Fairport-Lyons glacial-stream channel in Wayne County, New York, and adjacent areas (hereinafter referred to as the “Fairport-Lyons channel”). The Fairport-Lyons channel is a west-east-oriented bedrock channel in southern Wayne County that once served as the outlet for a proglacial lake. The Fairport-Lyons channel and intersecting subsidiary channels are hereinafter referred to as the “Fairport-Lyons channel system.” Glacial meltwater eroded this shallow channel network into the underlying bedrock, and the channels subsequently filled with interlayered glaciofluvial sand and gravel and fine-grained lacustrine deposits.

Sand and gravel aquifers in the Fairport-Lyons channel system are one of the few sources of large supplies of groundwater suitable for general use in Wayne County. A reexamination of well logs available in U.S. Geological Survey files, recent well logs from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Water Well Permit database, and logs of test borings has established that, in many places, the channels are generally shallow and that depth to bedrock usually ranges between 20 and 80 feet below land surface. However, saturated thicknesses of sand and gravel beneath terraces adjacent to the channels or beneath the flood plain are locally thick enough to support substantial groundwater withdrawals from properly constructed wells, as indicated by current (as of 2018) and past groundwater supplies at Macedon, Newark, Lyons, and Palmyra, N.Y. Areas with potential for groundwater supplies, both in and out of the channels proper, have been outlined on a surficial geologic map. Evidence from previously published reports and logs of wells and test borings indicate that there is no one single sand and gravel aquifer that occupies the 26 miles of the Fairport-Lyons channel. Rather, a gravel aquifer, approximately 40 feet thick, immediately underlies the flood plain just east of Macedon; an aquifer occurs in the basal saturated part of the terrace bordering the flood plain at Newark; and a gravel aquifer underlies lacustrine silt and sand atop bedrock at Lyons. Northeast of Lyons, a large sand delta produced by Lake Dawson water debouching into the Clyde River valley provides groundwater to Clyde, N.Y., and to many individual residences. High well yields, as much as 1,200 gallons per minute, have been reported for supply wells screened in sand and gravel deposits within the Fairport-Lyons channel that have a good hydraulic connection to the Erie Canal, indicating a reliance on induced infiltration of surface water for such high sustained yields.

Logs of domestic wells show that sand or sand and gravel are present in places beneath the till that composes the drumlin field. This groundwater source has not been previously documented in this area; however, its thickness and spotty occurrence indicate that it could be a possible source for domestic supply.

In the study area, the Fairport-Lyons channel system is underlain by shales of the Salina Group and the Lockport Dolomite. Two shale units of the Salina Formation—the Camillus Shale and the Vernon Shale—underlie the middle and southern parts of the study area, while the Lockport Dolomite underlies the northernmost part of the study area. The Vernon and Camillus Shales are soft, structurally weak rocks that contain extensive beds of gypsum and salt, both of which are soluble in water. The removal of soluble salt and gypsum results in large solution cavities in the shales. Because shales are structurally weak, collapse of the shale that overlies the solution cavities is common, resulting in partial filling of the cavities and causing additional fracturing of the shales. This additional fracturing and dissolution of salt and gypsum layers results in fairly high well yields for domestic wells completed in these two shale units; however, the dissolution of the salt and gypsum beds results in groundwater from these two rock units having a high mineral content that is unsatisfactory for drinking water in most cases.