Table (landform)

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A mesa in Monument Valley in Navajo Nation Over Monument Valley, Navajo Nation.jpg
A mesa in Monument Valley in Navajo Nation
Har Qatum, a mesa located on the southern edge of Makhtesh Ramon, Israel HarQatum.jpg
Har Qatum, a mesa located on the southern edge of Makhtesh Ramon, Israel

A table or tableland is a butte, flank of a mountain, or mountain, that has a flat top.

Contents

This kind of landform has numerous names, including:

A homologous landform under the sea is called a tablemount or guyot.

Description

The term "flat" is relative when speaking of tables, and often the naming or identification of a table (or table hill or mountain) is based on the appearance of the terrain feature from a distance or from below it. An example is Mesa Verde, Colorado, where the "flat top" of the mountain is both rolling terrain and cut by numerous deep canyons and arroyos, but whose rims appear quite flat from almost all directions, terminating in cliffs.

See also


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A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butte</span> Isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top

In geomorphology, a butte is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word butte comes from the French word butte, meaning knoll ; its use is prevalent in the Western United States, including the southwest where mesa is used for the larger landform. Due to their distinctive shapes, buttes are frequently landmarks in plains and mountainous areas. To differentiate the two landforms, geographers use the rule of thumb that a mesa has a top that is wider than its height, while a butte has a top that is narrower than its height.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mesa</span> Elevated area of land with a flat top and sides

A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a more resistant layer or layers of harder rock, e.g. shales overlain by sandstones. The resistant layer acts as a caprock that forms the flat summit of a mesa. The caprock can consist of either sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone; dissected lava flows; or a deeply eroded duricrust. Unlike plateau, whose usage does not imply horizontal layers of bedrock, e.g. Tibetan Plateau, the term mesa applies exclusively to the landforms built of flat-lying strata. Instead, flat-topped plateaus are specifically known as tablelands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plateau</span> Highland area, usually of relatively flat terrain

In geology and physical geography, a plateau, also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides have deep hills or escarpments. Plateaus can be formed by a number of processes, including upwelling of volcanic magma, extrusion of lava, and erosion by water and glaciers. Plateaus are classified according to their surrounding environment as intermontane, piedmont, or continental. A few plateaus may have a small flat top while others have wider ones.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Mesa</span> Mountain in Colorado, US

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Osiris Temple is a 6,613 ft elevation summit located in the Grand Canyon, in Coconino County of Arizona, US. This butte is situated approximately (2.27 mi) southwest of Shiva Temple, in the Upper Trinity Creek watershed, a north watershed into the Colorado River at Granite Gorge.

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