An approach to lattice varieties of finite height (Q2640633)

The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach to the following problems: 1. Is every lattice variety which contains only finitely many subvarieties generated by a finite lattice? 2. Does every variety V(L) generated by a finite lattice have only finitely many finitely generated covering varieties? 3. Does every variety V(L) generated by a finite lattice have only finitely many covering varieties, each generated by a finite lattice? The author presents here some methods for attacking these problems, which will yield some interesting results. While not coming close to solving any of the problems, he obtains various reductions of them in Sections 3, 4, and 5. In each of these sections he shows that a finitely generated variety V(L) has only finitely many covers, all finitely generated, satisfying certain natural additional restrictions depending on L. In Section 4 he also considers the structure of counterexamples to the conjectures - if any exist!