Article
Article
Escarpment
Article By:
Baker, Victor R. Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.
Last reviewed:November 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.241800
A long line of cliffs or steep slopes that break the general continuity of the land by separating it into two level or sloping surfaces. Some very high escarpments, or scarps, may form by vertical movement along faults. Often a whole block of land may be forced upward while the adjacent block is downfaulted. Such scarps are common in the tilted fault-block mountains of eastern California, Nevada and western Utah. In eastern Africa, prominent fault scarps mark the margins of the great rift valleys, whose floors are downfaulted by as much as 8200 ft (2500 m). See also: Fault and fault structures
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