butte (redirected from Butte (geology))

Butte, city, United States

Butte (byt), city (1990 pop. 33,336), seat of Silver Bow co., SW Mont.; inc. 1879. It is a trade, ranching, and industrial center. Mining dominated the city's life and economy from its establishment in 1862. Copper, as well as zinc, silver, manganese, gold, lead, molybdenum, and arsenic have been extracted from mines in the region; copper is still mined.

First an 1860s gold-hunters' camp, then an 1870s silver center, Butte gained importance when copper was discovered (c.1880) and Marcus Daly with his Anaconda Copper Mining Company began to exploit the "richest hill on earth." A huge open-pit mine, the Berkeley, opened in 1955; its expansion forced the relocation of one fifth of Butte's population.

"The Pit" was abandoned in 1982 and has filled with contaminated water draining from surrounding mines. The city, now the largest Superfund site in the nation, has become, in effect, a laboratory for environmental resuscitation efforts, and a number of pollution-remediation companies are based there. Montana Tech of the Univ. of the Montana is also in the city, and Butte is the headquarters of Deerlodge National Forest. Local attractions include museums of mining and minerals, Our Lady of the Rockies, and the Copper King Mansion, once the home of William A. Clark.

---

butte, in geology

butte, an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top, resulting from the more rapid erosion of the surrounding areas. Buttes are characteristic of the plains of the W United States. See mesa.

---

butte

(French: “hillock” or “rising ground”) Flat-topped hill surrounded by a steep cliff, from the bottom of which a slope descends to the plain. The term is sometimes used for an elevation higher than a hill but not high enough to be a mountain. Buttes topped by horizontal platforms of hard rock are characteristic of the arid plateau region of the western U.S. A butte is similar to a mesa but generally smaller; both are created by erosional processes.