{{short description|Isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top}} {{other uses|Butte (disambiguation)}} {{pp-pc}} [[File:Monument Valley, late afternoon.jpg|thumb|The Mittens and Merrick Butte in Monument Valley, Utah–Arizona]]

In geomorphology, a '''butte''' ({{IPAc-en|b|juː|t}} {{respell|BEWT}}) 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 {{wikt-lang|fr|butte}} ({{IPA|fr|byt|lang}}), meaning 'knoll' (of any size); its use is prevalent in the Western United States, including the Southwest, where {{langnf|es|{{wikt-lang|es|mesa}}|table}} is used for the larger landform.

Due to their distinctive shapes, buttes are frequently landmarks in plains and mountainous areas.<ref name=Jackson>{{cite book |editor1-last=Jackson |editor1-first=Julia A. |title=Glossary of Geology |date=1997 |publisher=American Geological Institute |location=Alexandria, Virginia |isbn=0922152349 |edition=4th |chapter=butte}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Allaby |first1=Michael |title=A dictionary of geology and earth sciences |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780199653065 |edition=Fourth |chapter=butte}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Mesa and Butte |work=Science Clarified |year=2008 |url=http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Faults-to-Mountains/Mesa-and-Butte.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202230831/http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Faults-to-Mountains/Mesa-and-Butte.html |archive-date=2 December 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==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 the top is further eroded by abrasion and weathering, the excess material that falls off adds to the scree or talus slope around the base.<ref name=Thornbury>{{cite book |last1=Thornbury |first1=William D. |title=Principles of geomorphology |date=1969 |publisher=Wiley |location=New York |isbn=0471861979 |page=133 |edition=2d}}</ref> On a much smaller scale, the same process forms hoodoos.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Davis, George Herbert|year=1999|title=Structural Geology of the Colorado Plateau Region of Southern Utah, with Special Emphasis on Deformation Bands|series=G.S.A. Special Paper 342|publisher=Geological Society of America|location=Boulder, Colorado|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=J3LPPrxrEaoC&pg=PA30 30]|isbn=978-0-8137-2342-6}}</ref>

==Notable buttes== The Mitten Buttes of Monument Valley in the Utah–Arizona state line are two of the most distinctive and widely recognized buttes. Monument Valley and the Mittens provided backgrounds in the scenes of many western-themed films, including seven movies directed by John Ford.{{refn|name=note1|group=note|The John Ford westerns with location work shot in Monument Valley were ''Stagecoach'' (1939), ''My Darling Clementine'' (1946), ''Fort Apache'' (1948), ''She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'' (1949), ''The Searchers'' (1956), ''Sergeant Rutledge'' (1960), and ''Cheyenne Autumn'' (1964).}} Another very well-known and frequently photographed butte in northern Arizona is Thumb Butte, which overlooks the city of Prescott and is the most prominent and distinctive geologic landmark in the vicinity. The Devils Tower in northeastern Wyoming is a laccolithic butte composed of igneous rock rather than sandstone, limestone or other sedimentary rocks.<ref>{{cite web | title=Devils Tower National Monument – Geologic Formations | url=https://home.nps.gov/deto/learn/nature/geologicformations.htm | publisher=National Park Service | date=10 Mar 2014 | access-date=13 Mar 2014}}</ref>

[[File:B D - Devil's Tower select (3) 1.1 (by).jpg|thumb|left|Devils Tower in Wyoming]]

The term ''butte'' is sometimes applied more broadly to isolated, steep-sided hills with pointed or craggy, rather than flat, tops.<ref name=Jackson/> Three notable formations that are either named ''butte'' or may be considered buttes even though they do not conform to the formal geographer's rule are Scotts Bluff in Nebraska which is a collection of five bluffs, Crested Butte, which is a {{convert|12168|ft|m|abbr=on}} mountain in Colorado, and Elephant Butte, which is now an island in Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico.

Among the well-known non-flat-topped buttes in the United States are Bear Butte, South Dakota, Black Butte, Oregon, and the Sutter Buttes in California. In many cases, buttes have been given other names that do not use the word ''butte'', for example, Courthouse Rock, Nebraska. Also, some large hills that are technically not buttes have names using the word, examples of which are Kamiak Butte, Chelan Butte and Steptoe Butte in Washington state.

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==Gallery== <gallery mode="packed"> File:Butte pdphoto roadtrip 24 bg 021604.jpg|Courthouse Butte near Sedona, Arizona File:Вид на крепость Качахакаберд4.JPG|Qaxaç Qalası or Kachaghakaberd fortress, Khojali District, Azerbaijan File:Pawnee Buttes2010.jpg|Pawnee Buttes, Pawnee National Grassland, Colorado File:Algérie 2009.jpg|Tamanrasset Province, Algeria File:Tacco di Perda 'e Liana.jpg|Monte Perda Liana in Sardinia, Italy. </gallery>

==See also== {{portal|Geography}} {{div col}} * {{annotated link|Caprock Escarpment}} * {{annotated link|Inliers and outliers (geology)}} * {{annotated link|Megalith}} * {{annotated link|Monadnock}} * {{annotated link|Monolith}} * {{annotated link|Potrero (landform)|Potrero}} * {{annotated link|Table mountain (disambiguation)}} * {{annotated link|Tepui}} * {{annotated link|Tuya}} * {{annotated link|Volcanic plug}} {{end div col}}

==Footnotes== {{Reflist|group=note}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{commons category|Buttes}} {{wiktionary}} * {{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Butte|short=x}} * {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Butte|short=x}}

{{Earth's landforms|state=collapsed}}

Category:Buttes Category:Sandstone Category:Geomorphology Category:Geography terminology Category:Erosion landforms Category:Slope landforms Category:Tablelands