Saturday, January 9, 2016

Pilot Butte, Saskatchewan

1,088 miles

Jan 9 - The name Pilot Butte, meaning "Lookout Point", was chosen for this settlement in 1883, referring to the flat-topped hill that served as a lookout for hunting buffalo and a signal point.  Later it also served as a landmark for airplanes approaching Regina.

The word “butte” comes from a French word meaning “small hill”.  Specifically, a butte is a conspicuous isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top.  Buttes are not to be confused with mesas.  A mesa is a landform that is wider than it is high and a butte is one that is higher than it is wide.

A butte’s characteristic shape is due to the layers of rock forming them. The top layer of a butte is a hardened layer of rock that is resistant to erosion. This top layer, called the cap rock, is usually composed of sedimentary rock, but sometimes is the remains of cooled and hardened lava flows. Beneath this flat protective cap of rock are horizontal layers of softer sedimentary rock.  The bare sides of these softer rock layers of buttes are eroded away over time.

historical info: Wikipedia

butte-mesa diagram:  http://geo-mexico.com/?p=7106

4 comments:

  1. That picture is NOT of pilot butte

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wrong Pilot Butte! That's the one in oregon!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, dear! I trusted the US Geological Service... which, I guess, should have been a hint to me that it is NOT Canada. I'll need further video research. Thanks for the heads up.

    ReplyDelete