Tableland

A tableland is an elevated landform with a distinct, flat or gently undulating top and steep, cliff-like edges called escarpments. Most tablelands form where rivers and streams cut headward into an extensive plateau of flat-lying sandstone or conglomerate, gradually breaking the plateau into smaller mesas, buttes and pinnacles; others form on duricrusts such as laterite or silcrete, which first develop a hard surface layer through deep weathering before rivers breach it and valley walls retreat through slope erosion. Volcanic tablelands form the same way but from a resistant caprock of lava or pyroclastic material, and the specific name a given remnant carries, whether butte, mesa, plateau or tepui, depends on its size and character.