Witness Hill

A witness hill is a type of landform created from the erosion of the earth. It is a testimony of the evolution and retreat of a platform or cuesta relief, that is, it is a rest of the platform in a relief where there are layers of hard and soft rocks arranged horizontally in which erosion has sculpted landscapes that are also horizontal. As the erosion produced by the rivers increases in the soft layers, hills are formed, and if the plateau is attacked by erosion from all sides, the witness hills with flat summits appear. They are therefore, the "witnesses" of the platform that existed in that place millions of years ago.^[1]

Some examples of this type of geological formation are: Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, Dori Plateau, Burkina Faso, La Teta Hill, La Guajira Peninsula and the Hills of Guayana, Venezuela. These hills are quite common in the sedimentary basins of the Meseta Central of the Iberian Peninsula,^[2] in the Ebro Depression and in the tabular reliefs.

References

^ Cascos Maraña, Cayetano (1987), "La compleja y variada configuración del relieve" [The complex and varied configuration of the relief], Geografía de Castilla y León. Los espacios naturales (in Spanish), p. 18, ISBN 84-86047-94-3
^ Moreno Peña, José Luis (1991), "Las llanuras al N. del Duero: Campiñas arcillosas y páramos calcáreos" [The plains to the N. of the Duero: Clay fields and calcareous moors], Geografía de Castilla y León. Las comarcas renovadas (in Spanish), pp. 48–49, ISBN 84-86047-94-3

[1] Cascos Maraña, Cayetano (1987), "La compleja y variada configuración del relieve" [The complex and varied configuration of the relief], Geografía de Castilla y León. Los espacios naturales (in Spanish), p. 18, ISBN 84-86047-94-3

[2] Moreno Peña, José Luis (1991), "Las llanuras al N. del Duero: Campiñas arcillosas y páramos calcáreos" [The plains to the N. of the Duero: Clay fields and calcareous moors], Geografía de Castilla y León. Las comarcas renovadas (in Spanish), pp. 48–49, ISBN 84-86047-94-3

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