Scarp landscape

A cuesta is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope on one side, and a steep slope on the other. In geology the term is more specifically applied to a ridge where a harder sedimentary rock overlies a softer layer, the whole being tilted somewhat from the horizontal. This results in a long and gentle backslope called a dip slope that conforms with the dip of resistant strata, called caprock. Where erosion has exposed the frontslope of this, a steep slope or escarpment occurs. The resulting terrain may be called scarpland.

In general usage, a cuesta is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope (backslope) on one side, and a steep slope (frontslope) on the other. The word is from Spanish: "flank or slope of a hill; hill, mount, sloping ground". In geology and geomorphology, cuesta refers specifically to an asymmetric ridge with a long and gentle backslope called a dip slope that conforms with the dip of a resistant stratum or strata, called caprock. The outcrop of the caprock forms a steeper or even cliff-like frontslope (escarpment), cutting through the dipping strata that comprise the cuesta.

Cuestas are the expression of extensive outcrops of gently dipping strata, typically sedimentary strata, that consist of alternating beds of weak or loosely cemented strata, i.e. shale, mudstone, and marl and hard, well-lithified strata, i.e. sandstone and limestone. The surfaces of the hard, erosion-resistant rock strata form the caprock of the backslope (dip-slope) of the cuesta, where erosion has preferentially removed the weaker strata. The frontslope of the cuesta consists of an escarpment that cuts across the bedding of the strata comprising it. Because of the gently dipping nature of the strata that forms a cuesta, a significant shift in horizontal location will take place as the landscape is lowered by erosion. Because the slope of a cuesta dips in the same direction as the sedimentary strata, the dip angle of this bedding (θ) can be calculated by (v / h) = tan(θ) where v is equal to the vertical distance and h is equal to the horizontal distance perpendicular to the strike of the beds.

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