Why Are Some Mountains Flat At The Tops?
Mount Roraima in Venezuela is one of the most famous examples of a mesa (Spanish for table) with a flat top and vertical sides. In the local language, the mountain type is known as “tepui”, house of the gods, and Mount Roraima is not by far the only one.
Mount Roraima and the other table-top mountains in the region are erosional remnants, i.e. they hover above the landscape, because the material around them has eroded. Mount Roraima is the largest of its kind in South America with a top covering an area of 31 km2 and a vertical dip of 400 m to all sides.
The top is flat, as it consists of former land surface, which was forced upwards, when South America left the African continent 180 million years ago.
Roraima is a major tourist attraction. Though the steep sides make much of the mountain impassable, it is possible to hike to the top via a natural ramp.