Finger lake

Last updated September 12, 2025

A finger lake, also known as a fjord lake or trough lake, is "a narrow linear body of water occupying a glacially overdeepened valley and sometimes impounded by a morainic dam."^[1]^[2]^[3] Where one end of a finger lake is drowned by the sea, it becomes a fjord or sea-loch.

Examples

New Zealand

Lake Wakatipu, Otago, South Island.

United Kingdom

England

Many of the lakes of the Lake District are finger lakes.

Scotland

Many lochs of Scotland are finger lakes. Some like Loch Broom and Loch Maree form fjord and finger lake systems.

Wales

Many of the Welsh llynnoedd.

United States

Finger Lakes, New York State

References

↑ Hamblin and Carmack (1978), 885.
↑ Whittow (1984), 193.
↑ Kotlyakov and Komarova (2007), 255.

Literature

Hamblin, P.F. and Carmack, E.C., 1978. River‐induced currents in a Fjord Lake. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 83(C2), pp. 885–899.
Kotlyakov, Vladimir and Anna Komarova, Elsevier's Dictionary of Geography: in English, Russian, French, Spanish and German. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007. ISBN 978-0-444-51042-6.
Whittow, John (1984). Dictionary of Physical Geography. London: Penguin, 1984. ISBN 0-14-051094-X.

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[1] Hamblin and Carmack (1978), 885.

[2] Whittow (1984), 193.

[3] Kotlyakov and Komarova (2007), 255.

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