Dec. 17, 2007 - 20:50 MST

TERMINOLOGY

I guess elevations in geography have always been a fascination of mine. Being born and raised so close to the Rocky Mountains as I was, its probably a good thing the love of them was in me.

I was fascintated with Golden, Colorado -- so close to town, but so different. At the base of Lookout Mountain with its rock formed M for the School of Mines and its twisty road from Golden up.

And across the little valley were the flattops (Coors Brewery at the bottom of the south one) were a source of wonder to me. How could something so high be so flat on top ? When everything else was rounded, piled and so forth ?

On our trips south to see my Grandmother I saw many of those flattops and learned they were called "mesas" which I guess is the word for table in one of the Romance languages.

In a high school geology class I learned how they were formed, as well as many other things. I was almost led to follow that course in education.

A puzzle to me, yet today, is why did Clear Creek split the Table Tops into North and South Table Mountains ? At the stage of the world when this happened, was this the easy course for water to follow ? As can be seen from the cuts made to build road there are curious folds and tilts to the land. The Red Rocks sloping up on a tilt just east of our foot hills demonstrate that things were not all level back then. That formation is as far south as Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs 60 some miles south.

So, I grew up as a neighbor of our resident mesas, but only later did "mesa" become part of my TERMINOLOGY . . . . . . . .

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