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mesa
mesa Mesas in Gloss Mountain State Park, western Oklahoma.

mesa

geology
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News •

Mesa firefighters rescue owl from power lines • Oct. 17, 2026, 6:45 AM ET (The Arizona Republic)
Mesa firefighters had a hoot saving an owl dangling from power line • Oct. 17, 2026, 3:00 AM ET (The Arizona Republic)

mesa, (Spanish: “table”), flat-topped tableland with one or more steep sides, common in the Colorado Plateau regions of the United States; a butte is similar but smaller. Both are formed by erosion; during denudation, or downcutting and stripping, areas of harder rock in a plateau act as flat protective caps for portions of underlying land situated between such places as stream valleys, where erosion is especially active. This results in a table mountain (mesa) or fortress hill (butte; q.v.).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.