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Mesa facts for kids

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Over Monument Valley, Navajo Nation
Aerial view of mesas in Monument Valley, on the Colorado Plateau
Gloss Mountains
Mesas in the Glass Mountains of western Oklahoma.

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.

Cockburn Range
Cockburn Range, Kimberley, Western Australia, Australia

Names, definition and etymology

As noted by geologist Kirk Bryan in 1922, mesas "...stand distinctly above the surrounding country, as a table stands above the floor upon which it rests". It is from this appearance that the term mesa was adopted from the Spanish word mesa, meaning "table".

A mesa is similar to, but has a more extensive summit area than a butte. There is no agreed size limit that separates mesas from either buttes or plateaus. For example, the flat-topped mountains which are known as mesas in the Cockburn Range of North Western Australia have areas as large as 350 km2 (140 sq mi). In contrast, flat topped hills with areas as small as 0.1 km2 (0.039 sq mi) in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, Germany, are described as mesas.

Less strictly, a very broad, flat-topped, usually isolated hill or mountain of moderate height bounded on at least one side by a steep cliff or slope and representing an erosion remnant also have been called mesas.

In the English-language geomorphic and geologic literature, other terms for mesa have also been used. For example, in the Roraima region of Venezuela, the traditional name, tepui, from the local Pomón language, and the term table mountains have been used to describe local flat-topped mountains. Similar landforms in Australia are known as tablehills, table-top hills, tent hills, or jump ups (jump-ups). The German term Tafelberg has also been used in the English scientific literature in the past.

Formation

HarQatum
Har Qatum, a mesa located on the southern edge of Makhtesh Ramon, Israel

Mesas form by weathering and erosion of horizontally layered rocks that have been uplifted by tectonic activity. Variations in the ability of different types of rock to resist weathering and erosion cause the weaker types of rocks to be eroded away, leaving the more resistant types of rocks topographically higher than their surroundings. This process is called differential erosion. The most resistant rock types include sandstone, conglomerate, quartzite, basalt, chert, limestone, lava flows and sills. Lava flows and sills, in particular, are very resistant to weathering and erosion, and often form the flat top, or caprock, of a mesa. The less resistant rock layers are mainly made up of shale, a softer rock that weathers and erodes more easily.

The differences in strength of various rock layers are what give mesas their distinctive shape. Less resistant rocks are eroded away on the surface into valleys, where they collect water drainage from the surrounding area, while the more resistant layers are left standing out. A large area of very resistant rock, such as a sill, may shield the layers below it from erosion while the softer rock surrounding it is eroded into valleys, thus forming a caprock.

Differences in rock type also reflect on the sides of a mesa, as instead of smooth slopes, the sides are broken into a staircase pattern called "cliff-and-bench topography". The more resistant layers form the cliffs, or stairsteps, while the less resistant layers form gentle slopes, or benches, between the cliffs. Cliffs retreat and are eventually cut off from the main cliff, or plateau, by basal sapping. When the cliff edge does not retreat uniformly but instead is indented by headward eroding streams, a section can be cut off from the main cliff, forming a mesa.

Basal sapping occurs as water flowing around the rock layers of the mesa erodes the underlying soft shale layers, either as surface runoff from the mesa top or from groundwater moving through permeable overlying layers, which leads to slumping and flowage of the shale. As the underlying shale erodes away, it can no longer support the overlying cliff layers, which collapse and retreat. When the caprock has caved away to the point where only little remains, it is known as a butte.

Examples and locations

Australia

Mount Conner - panoramio
Mount Conner, a mesa located in Northern Territory, Australia
Amadiya - panorama
Amadiya, Iraq, a city in its entirety built on a mesa

Czech Republic

  • Děčínský Sněžník

France

Germany

  • Königstein, Saxony
  • Lilienstein, Saxony
  • Papststein, Saxony
  • Pfaffenstein, Saxony
  • Quirl, Saxony

India

Iraq

Ireland

Israel

Italy

United Kingdom

England

Ingleborough from Little Ingleborough - geograph.org.uk - 548604
Ingleborough in North Yorkshire, England

Scotland

United States

Many but not all American mesas lie within the Basin and Range Province.

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Mesa in Colorado
Mount Garfield, a mesa in Colorado

Nevada

Oklahoma

Texas

Utah

Wisconsin

On Mars

PIA21585 - A Mesa in Noctis Labyrinthus
A mesa in Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars, viewed by HiRISE

A transitional zone on Mars, known as fretted terrain, lies between highly cratered highlands and less cratered lowlands. The younger lowland exhibits steep walled mesas and knobs. The mesa and knobs are separated by flat lying lowlands. They are thought to form from ice-facilitated mass wasting processes from ground or atmospheric sources. The mesas and knobs decrease in size with increasing distance from the highland escarpment. The relief of the mesas range from nearly 2 km (1.2 mi) to 100 m (330 ft) depending on the distance they are from the escarpment.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Mesa (geomorfología) para niños

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