Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming is a column of basalt that has resisted weathering, unlike the less-resistent rock that once surrounded it. © Dave G. Houser/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.

Basin and range topography is characterized by tilted fault blocks forming sub-parallel mountain ranges and intervening sediment-filled basins. These elements are typical of the basin and range physiographic topography in the western United States. This province is bounded on the east by the Colorado Plateau, the Columbia and Snake River Plateaus to the north, the Sierra Nevada to the west, and extends southward through eastern California and southern Arizona into northern Mexico. Nearly the entire state of Nevada and western Utah exhibit features distinctive to basin and range topography.

Within the basin and range province, steep mountain ranges are bounded by normal faults, with ground motion along the faults resulting in the...