Buttes
   HOME





Buttes
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 , meaning 'knoll' (of any size); its use is prevalent in the Western United States, including the southwest where (Spanish for 'table') 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. Formation Buttes form by weathering and erosion when hard caprock overlies a layer of less resistant rock that is eventually worn away. The harder rock on top of the butte resists erosion. The caprock provides protection for the less resistant rock below from wind abrasion which leaves it standing isolated. As ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Caprock
Caprock or cap rock is a hard, resistant, and impermeable layer of rock that overlies and protects a reservoir of softer organic material, similar to the crust on a pie where the crust (caprock) prevents leakage of the soft filling (softer material). Caprocks consist of erosion-resistant rocks like sandstone, limestone, basalt, and evaporites that form landforms like mesas and buttes through differential erosion. It influences hydrology by creating waterfalls and aquifers, while also trapping hydrocarbons in petroleum reservoirs. Geological Characteristics Caprock is typically composed of erosion-resistant materials. Common caprock materials include stronlgy cemented sandstone, limestone, basalt, and evaporites like anhydrite, gypsum, or halite, which form over salt domes. The formation of caprock occurs through processes such as differential erosion, where resistant rocks remain as elevated features while softer rocks erode away; depositional processes, including chemica ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mesa
A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge, or hill, bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and standing distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks, such as shales, capped by a resistant layer of harder rock, like sandstone or limestone, forming a caprock that protects the flat summit. The caprock may also include dissected lava flows or eroded duricrust. Unlike a ''plateau'', which is a broader, elevated region that may not have horizontal bedrock (e.g., Tibetan Plateau), a mesa is defined by flat-lying strata and steep-sided isolation. Large, flat-topped plateaus with horizontal strata, less isolated and often part of extensive plateau systems, are called '' tablelands''. A ''butte'' is a smaller, eroded mesa with a limited summit, while a '' cuesta'' has a gentle dip slope and one steep escarpment due to tilted strata.Duszyński, F., Migoń, P. and Strzelecki, M.C., 2019. ''Escarpment retreat in sedim ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Table (landform)
A tableland is an area containing elevated landforms characterized by a distinct, flat, nearly level, or gently undulating surface. They often exhibit steep, cliff-like edges, known as escarpments, that separate them from surrounding lowlands. Depending on either their size, other physical characteristics, or geographic location, the landforms comprising a tableland are individually referred to by a number of names including butte, mesa, plateau, potrero, tepui, or tuya. A homologous landform under the sea is called either a tablemount or guyot. Sedimentary tablelands Sedimentary tablelands are tablelands that typically have developed from the erosion of coarse-grained, clastic, sedimentary rocks in the form of relatively flat-lying sandstones and conglomerates that have not been strongly deformed by tectonics. The primary control on the geomorphology of sedimentary tablelands is the dip of the layers of the sandstones, conglomerates, and associated sedimentary strata. Sedim ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

West And East Mitten Buttes
The West and East Mitten Buttes (also known as the Mittens) are two buttes in the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park in northeast Navajo County, Arizona. When viewed from the south, the buttes appear to be two giant mittens with their thumbs facing inwards. The Mittens are about from the Arizona–Utah state line and West Mitten Butte is northeast of the park headquarters. The summit of West Mitten Butte is and East Mitten Butte is in elevation. The Mittens form a triangle with Merrick Butte about to the south and, with Sentinel Mesa, a more extensive plateau, towards the northwest. At the end of March and mid-September, for a few days only at sunset, the Mitten Shadow occurs, when the West Mitten shadow appears on the East Mitten. The buttes are made of three principal rock layers. The lowest layer is Organ Rock Shale, the middle is de Chelly Sandstone, and the top layer is the Moenkopi Formation, capped by Shinarump Conglomerate. Gallery File:West Mitten Butte, E ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, and Nevada to the west. In comparison to all the U.S. states and territories, Utah, with a population of just over three million, is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 13th largest by area, the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 30th most populous, and the List of U.S. states by population density, 11th least densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two regions: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which includes the state capital, Salt Lake City, and is home to roughly two-thirds of the population; and Washington County, Utah, Washington County in the southwest, which has approximately 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Monument Valley
Monument Valley (, , meaning "valley of the rocks") is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of sandstone buttes, with the largest reaching above the valley floor. The most famous butte formations are located in northeastern Arizona along the Utah–Arizona state line. The valley is considered sacred by the Navajo Nation, the Native American people within whose reservation it lies. Monument Valley has been featured in many forms of media since the 1930s. Famed director John Ford used the location for a number of his Westerns. Film critic Keith Phipps wrote that "its have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West". Geography and geology Monument Valley is part of the Colorado Plateau. The elevation of the valley floor ranges from above sea level. The floor is largely siltstone of the Cutler Group, or sand derived from it, deposited by the meandering rivers that carved the valley. The valley's vivid red colorati ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Scree
Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a cliff or other steep rocky mass that has accumulated through periodic rockfall. Landforms associated with these materials are often called talus deposits. The term ''scree'' is applied both to an unstable steep mountain slope composed of rock fragments and other debris, and to the mixture of rock fragments and debris itself. It is loosely synonymous with talus, material that accumulates at the base of a projecting mass of rock, or talus slope, a landform composed of talus. The term ''scree'' is sometimes used more broadly for any sheet of loose rock fragments mantling a slope, while ''talus'' is used more narrowly for material that accumulates at the base of a cliff or other rocky slope from which it has obviously eroded. Scree is formed by rockfall, which distinguishes it from colluvium. Colluvium is rock fragments or soil deposited by rainwash, sheetwash, or slow downhill creep, usually at the base of gentle ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
''She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'' is a 1949 American Technicolor Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. It is the second film in Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", along with '' Fort Apache'' (1948) and ''Rio Grande'' (1950). With a budget of $1.6 million, the film was one of the most expensive Westerns made up to that time. It was a major hit for RKO. The film is named after " She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", a song popular with the U.S. military. The film was shot on location in Monument Valley utilizing large areas of the Navajo reservation along the Arizona-Utah state border. Ford and cinematographer Winton C. Hoch based much of the film's imagery on the paintings and sculptures of Frederic Remington. Hoch won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color in 1950. It was also nominated as 1950's Best Written American Western (which the Writers Guild of America awarded to '' Yellow Sky''). Plot On the verge of his retirement in August, 1876 at Fort Starke, a small ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Fort Apache (film)
''Fort Apache'' is a 1948 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda. The film was the first of the director's "Cavalry Trilogy" and was followed by '' She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'' (1949) and ''Rio Grande'' (1950), both also starring Wayne. The screenplay was inspired by James Warner Bellah's short story "Massacre" (1947). The historical sources for "Massacre" have been attributed both to George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn and to the Fetterman Fight. The film was one of the first to present an authentic and sympathetic view of Native Americans. In his review of the DVD release of ''Fort Apache'' in 2012, ''The New York Times'' movie critic Dave Kehr called it "one of the great achievements of classical American cinema, a film of immense complexity that never fails to reveal new shadings with each viewing" and "among the first 'pro-Indian' Westerns" in its portrayal of indigenous Americans with "sympathy and respe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


My Darling Clementine
''My Darling Clementine'' is a 1946 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp during the period leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The ensemble cast also features Victor Mature (as Doc Holliday), Linda Darnell, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt, Cathy Downs and Ward Bond. The title of the movie is borrowed from the theme song " Oh My Darling, Clementine", sung in parts over the opening and closing credits. The screenplay is based on the biography '' Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal'' by Stuart Lake, as were two earlier movies, both named ''Frontier Marshal'' (released in 1934 and 1939, respectively). ''My Darling Clementine'' is regarded by many film critics as one of the best Westerns ever made. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It was among the third annual group of 25 films named ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Stagecoach (1939 Film)
''Stagecoach'' is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows an eclectic group of travelers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory. The film has long been recognized as an important work transcending the Western genre, and is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1995, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. Still, ''Stagecoach'' has not avoided controversy. Like most Westerns of the era, its depiction of Native Americans as mere savages has been criticized. ''Stagecoach'' was the first of many Westerns that Ford shot in Monument Valley, on the Arizona–Utah border in the American Southwest. So ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), better known as John Ford, was an American film director and producer. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and was one of the first American directors to be recognized as an auteur. In a career of more than 50 years, he directed over John Ford filmography, 130 films between 1917 and 1970 (although most of his silent films are now lost film, lost), and received a record four Academy Award for Best Director for ''The Informer (1935 film), The Informer'' (1935), ''The Grapes of Wrath (film), The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940), ''How Green Was My Valley (film), How Green Was My Valley'' (1941), and ''The Quiet Man'' (1952). Ford is renowned for his Western film, Westerns, such as ''Stagecoach (1939 film), Stagecoach'' (1939), ''My Darling Clementine'' (1946), ''Fort Apache (film), Fort Apache'' (1948), ''The Searchers'' (1956), and ''The Man Who Shot Liberty ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]