Escarpment face of a cuesta broken by a fault.
Cumberland Plateau Tennessee.

Schematic cross section of three cuesta's, dipslopes facing left, and harder rocklayers in darker colors than softer ones

Cuesta is a geological term, used to describe the ridges formed by gently tilted hard rock layers. Every cuesta has a steep slope, where the rock layers are exposed on their edges, called an escarpment or, if more severe, a cliff. Usually an erosion-resistant rock layer also has a more gentle slope on the other side of the ridge called a 'dip slope'. The term derives from the Spanish word for 'slope'. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1200x900, 584 KB) Escarpment on the Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee by Pollinator. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1200x900, 584 KB) Escarpment on the Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee by Pollinator. ... In geology, an escarpment is a transition zone between different physiogeographic provinces that involves an elevation differential, often involving high cliffs. ... The Cumberland Plateau includes much of eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia in the United States. ... Official language(s) English Capital Nashville Largest city Memphis Area  Ranked 36th  - Total 42,169 sq mi (109,247 km²)  - Width 120 miles (195 km)  - Length 440 miles (710 km)  - % water 2. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (956x201, 13 KB) Cuesta schematic - drawn in Inkscape - darkly colored hard layers of rock, lightly colored softer layers. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (956x201, 13 KB) Cuesta schematic - drawn in Inkscape - darkly colored hard layers of rock, lightly colored softer layers. ... The Blue Marble: The famous photo of the Earth taken en route to the Moon by Apollo 17s Harrison Schmitt on December 7, 1972. ... Sedimentary, volcanic, plutonic, metamorphic rock types of North America. ... In geology, an escarpment is a transition zone between different physiogeographic provinces that involves an elevation differential, often involving high cliffs. ... The Trango Towers in Pakistan have the highest cliffs in the world In geography, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. ... Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock and other particles) by the agents of wind, water or ice, by downward or down-slope movement in response to gravity or by living organisms (in the case of... General Definition A dip slope is a geological formation often created by tilted strata. ...

Two well-known cuestas in western New York and southern Ontario are the Niagara escarpment and the Onondaga escarpment, where the dip is about 40 feet per mile to the south. The escarpment edge faces north and, in its most populated section, runs roughly parallel to the southern Lake Ontario shoreline. State nickname: Empire State Other U.S. States Capital Albany Largest city New York Governor George Pataki Official languages None Area 141,205 km² (27th)  - Land 122,409 km²  - Water 18,795 km² (13. ... Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin: Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Official languages English (French has some legal status but is not fully co-official) Flower White Trillium Tree Eastern White Pine Bird Common Loon Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant-Governor James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty... Rattlesnake Point near Milton, Ontario. ... The Onondaga Formation is a group of hard limestones and dolostones of Devonian age that form an important geographic feature in the area of outcrop. ... Strike and dip refer to the orientation or attitude of a geologic feature. ... Lake Ontario (French: lac Ontario), bounded on the north by Ontario and on the south by Ontarios Niagara Peninsula and by New York State, is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. ...

The Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas is punctuated by a series of cuestas that parallel the coast.^{[citation needed]} The cuestas have gentle slopes gulf-ward to the southeast and steeper northwest-facing escarpments. The Reynosa Plateau is the most coast-ward cuesta, which sees surface expression with the Bordes-Oakville escarpment, on the northwest side and a low ridge on the eastern boundary, called the Reynosa cuesta, where the deposits dip below later Pliocene-Pleistocene deposits of the Willis and Lissie Formation. The Gulf Coastal Plain extends from the Florida Parishes of Louisiana over most of Mississippi, some of western Tennessee and Kentucky, the southwestern 2/3 of Alabama, and the western panhandle of Florida. ... Official language(s) See: Languages of Texas Capital Austin Largest city Houston Area  Ranked 2nd  - Total 268,581 sq mi (695,622 km²)  - Width 773 miles (1,244 km)  - Length 790 miles (1,270 km)  - % water 2. ... The Pliocene epoch (spelled Pleiocene in some older texts) is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5. ... The Pleistocene epoch (IPA: ) is part of the geologic timescale. ...

Cuestas have less dramatic expression in the United Kingdom, with two notable examples being the northwest-facing escarpment of the Jurassic chalk White Horse Hills and the similarly-aligned escarpment of the Cotswolds. The Jurassic Period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 200 Ma (million years ago), at the end of the Triassic to 146 Ma, at the beginning of the Cretaceous. ... The Needles, part of the extensive Southern England Chalk Formation. ... As seen from an altitude of 2000 feet, from the cockpit of a glider The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised hillfigure, 374 feet (110m) long, cut out of the turf on the upper slopes of Uffington Castle, an Iron Age hill fort near The Ridgeway, in southern England. ... The Cotswolds is the name given to a range of hills in central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, a hilly area reaching over 300 m or 1000 feet. ...

See also

• Escarpment
• Dip slope
• Strike and dip