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Information about Plateau

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Monte Roraima
In geology and earth science, A plateau, also called a high plateau or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat rural area.

Genesis

A plateau is a large and highland area of fairly level land separated from surrounding land by steep slopes (as in the Tibet), or to accumulation of sediments (as in intramountain endorheic basins), or to a combination of both (as in the Andean Altiplano). Sediment accumulation results usually in very low depositional angles, consitent with the definition of high plateau. As for uplift, if this was recent in geologic history, then the low relief can be mostly preserved. Plateaus (or plateaux), like mesas and buttes, are formed when a flat land has been uplifted by tectonic activity and then eroded by wind or water. Flat-topped, sheer-sided plateaus, like the tepuis of Guiana and Nicik of Poland, are formed when a section of land is uplifted that is topped with a layer of particularly resistant rock, and underlain by softer rock. Other types of plateaus can be formed due to collisions of sections of Earth's crust, due to lava flows forming the land surface (known as lava or basalt plateaus), or simply when the erosion wears away the side of a land region. Plateaus cover about 45 percent of Earth's surface.

Examples

The largest and highest plateau in the world is the Chang Tang of Tibet, called the "roof of the world", which is still being formed by the collisions of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Second in the list is the Andean Altiplano, 3600-4000 m in altitude, located within the Central Andes and including Lake Titicaca. [1]

Oceanic plateaus

Plateau is also used to describe undersea geologic formations. Some undersea plateaus, like the Seychelles plateau, are fragments of continental crust that lie separate from continents; they are analogous to continental shelves. Others, like the Ontong Java Plateau are large igneous provinces made of flood basalts.

Dissected plateaus

Main article: Dissected plateau
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Escarpment face of a cuesta, broken by a fault. Lookout Mountain, Georgia
A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau. These older uplifts have been eroded by creeks and rivers to develop steep relief not immediately distinguishable from mountains. Many areas of the Allegheny Plateau and the Cumberland Plateau, which are at the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America, are called "mountains" but are actually dissected plateaus. One can stand on a high "mountain" and note that all the other tops are at the same height, which represents the original plain before uplift.

A dissected plateau may also be formed, or created, usually on a comparatively small scale, by the levelling of terrain by planing and layne elstein and deposition beneath an ice sheet or perhaps, an ice cap. Subsequently, during the same or a later glacial, the margins of the glacial till plain are removed by glaciers, leaving the plateau into which erosion by water incises valleys. Such a plateau may be level or gently sloping but may be distinguished by the till caps on its hills. Glacial till is still widely known in Britain by the older name of boulder clay.

References

Oceanic crust      0-20 Ma
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Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet.
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highland is used to denote any mountainous region or elevated mountainous plateau.

The Scottish Highlands refers to the mountainous region north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault.
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Tibet (see Name section below for other spellings) is a Plateau region in Central Asia and the indigenous home to the Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft), it is the highest region on Earth and is commonly referred to as the "Roof of the World.
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An endorheic basin (from Greek endo ‘inside’ + rhein ‘to flow’; also terminal or closed basin) is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow to other bodies of water such as rivers or oceans.
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A drainage basin is a region of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, dam, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from
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Altiplano (Spanish for high plain), where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on earth outside of Tibet. It is an area of inland drainage lying in the central Andes, occupying parts of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.
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The geological time scale is used by geologists and other scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of Earth.
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mesa (Spanish and Portuguese for "table") is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs. It takes its name from its characteristic table-top shape.
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A butte (IPA: /bju:t/) is an isolated hill with steep sides and a small flat top, smaller than mesas and plateaus. Buttes are prevalent in the western United States and on the Hawaiian Islands, especially around Honolulu.
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Tectonics, (from the Greek for "builder", tekton), is a field of study within geology concerned generally with the structures within the crust of the Earth (or other planets) and particularly with the forces and movements that have operated in a region to create these
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Erosion is displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock and other particles) usually by the agents of currents such as, wind, water, or ice by downward or down-slope movement in response to gravity or by living organisms (in the case of bioerosion).
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WIND (SOLARWIND) was a NASA spacecraft launched on November 1, 1994. It was deployed to study radio and plasma that occur in solar wind, in the Earth's magnetosphere. The spacecraft's original mission was to orbit the Sun at the L1
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Water is a common chemical substance that is essential to all known forms of life.[1] In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor.
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Tepuis are table-top mountains (mesas) found only in the Guiana highlands, especially in Venezuela. These geological formations tend to be found as isolated entities rather than in mountain range fashion, which makes them the host of a unique array of endemic plant and animal
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The Guyanas or Guianas are a group of three countries on the northeast coast of South America:
  • Guyana, formerly known as British Guiana
  • Suriname, formerly known as "Dutch Guiana"
  • French Guiana, an overseas department of France

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Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai-Tibetan (Qingzang) Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau in East Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province in the People's Republic of China and Ladakh in Kashmir.
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Tibet (see Name section below for other spellings) is a Plateau region in Central Asia and the indigenous home to the Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft), it is the highest region on Earth and is commonly referred to as the "Roof of the World.
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Tibet (see Name section below for other spellings) is a Plateau region in Central Asia and the indigenous home to the Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft), it is the highest region on Earth and is commonly referred to as the "Roof of the World.
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Indo-Australian Plate is an overarching name for two tectonic plates that include the continent of Australia and surrounding ocean extending northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and adjacent waters.
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Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate covering Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia) except that it does not cover the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Verkhoyansk Range in East Siberia.
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Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων, tektōn "builder" or "mason") is a theory of geology that has been developed to explain the observed evidence for large scale motions of the Earth's lithosphere.
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Altiplano (Spanish for high plain), where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on earth outside of Tibet. It is an area of inland drainage lying in the central Andes, occupying parts of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.
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Coordinates Coordinates:
Lake type Mountain Lake
Primary sources 27 rivers

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Motto
"Finis Coronat Opus"   (Latin)
"The End Crowns the Work"
Anthem
Koste Seselwa
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continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain, which is covered during interglacial periods such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas (known as shelf seas) and gulfs.
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The Ontong Java Plateau is a huge oceanic plateau located in the Pacific Ocean, lying north of the Solomon Islands. The plateau covers an area of approximately 2,000,000 km², or roughly the size of Alaska, and reaches a thickness of up to 30 km.
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Large Igneous provinces (LIPS) were originally defined by Coffin and Eldholm (1992) as areas of Earth's surface that contain very large volumes of magmatic rocks (typically basalt but including rhyolites) erupted over extremely short geological time intervals of a few million years
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flood basalt or trapp basalt is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that coats large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Flood basalts have occurred on continental scales (large igneous provinces) in prehistory, creating great plateaus
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dissected plateau is an area that has been uplifted, then severely eroded so that the relief is sharp. Such an area may be referred to as mountainous, but dissected plateaus are distinguishable from orogenic mountain belts by the lack of folding, metamorphism, extensive faulting,
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