Mesa

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.[1][2][3] As noted by Bryan in 1922, mesas "...stand distinctly above the surrounding country, as a table stands above the floor upon which it rests".[4] It is from this appearance that the term mesa was adopted from the Spanish word mesa, meaning "table".[2] A mesa is similar to, but has a more extensive summit area than a butte. However, 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 much as 350 kilometres (220 mi). In contrast, flat topped hills, which are as small as 0.1 kilometres (0.062 mi) in area, in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, Germany, are described as mesas.[1][2][3]