A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a more resistant layer or layers of harder rock, e.g. shales overlain by sandstones. The resistant layer acts as a caprock that forms the flat summit of a mesa. The caprock can consist of either sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone; dissected lava flows; or a deeply eroded duricrust. Unlike plateau, whose usage does not imply horizontal layers of bedrock, e.g. Tibetan Plateau, the term mesa applies exclusively to the landforms built of flat-lying strata. Instead, flat-topped plateaus are specifically known as tablelands.
Antu County is a county under the jurisdiction of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, which is located in the east of Jilin Province, the southwest of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, bordering the Democratic people's Republic of Korea in the south, and the center of "Northeast Asia Tourism Circle" and the hinterland of "Northeast Asia Economic Cooperation Circle" in the north. It is located between 127th °48km east longitude and 42o 01km north latitude. It covers an area of 7438 square kilometers, with a total population of 209439 (2014), of which the Korean nationality accounts for 20.9% of the total population of the county. Antu belongs to the continental monsoon climate, the temperature increases gradually from south to north, and the precipitation decreases gradually. The annual average temperature is 2.2 °in the south, and the average annual precipitation is 669.7 mm in the south and 594.7 mm in the north. In 2013, Antu County