BUFFALO, NY GEOLOGY

http://www.amherststatepark.org/ASP/rising7.html 

Schematic geological cross section through the western end of the Lake Ontario basin to the eastern end of the Lake Erie basin, showing the locations of the lakes relative to the southward dipping Ordovician to Mississippian stratigraphic succession

"My mental map has developed into a mental map of belts of east/west landforms that lay parallel to the Lake Ontario shoreline.  Starting south of Buffalo, you encounter the southern-most of these landform belts, the Appalachian Plateau.  In states to the south it is called the Allegany Plateau or the Cumberland Plateau.  The Appalachian Plateau is essentially the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains, made of sedimentary rocks that are tilted slightly southward.  The plateau is stream-dissected meaning that the landscape has been eroded down by the work of streams, cutting steep valleys into the rocks.  The boundary between the Appalachian Plateau and the glacial deposits to the north of it, is the southern-most escarpment in the Western New York region—the Portage Escarpment.  It is about 1000 feet in height.  In the last ice age, the ice sheet could not rise to a height to cover the escarpment so it ended up scouring downward, creating the Finger Lakes to the north of the scarp.  This left the land to the north of the escarpment as primarily glacial till on top of bedrock."

http://www.amherststatepark.org/ASP/geology.html