LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Missouri Escarpment
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The Missouri Escarpment is a ridge in North Dakota approximately 100 miles to the west of the Red River Valley, at the edge of the Missouri Plateau. It divides the Central Lowlands province from the Great Plains province.
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The Missouri Escarpment separates the Drift Prairie from the Great Plains. The North Dakota portion of the Great Plains is called the Missouri Plateau. The withdrawal of ancient seas from the area and subsequent erosion carved the topography of the Badlands in the southwestern part of the state. Canyons, gorges, ravines, bluffs, and buttes mark the land. Deposits of lignite coal, oil, and gas underlie the land.
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Separating the Second Prairie Level from the western portion of the geomorphic province is the Missouri Coteau and its eastward-facing edge, the Missouri Escarpment. The Missouri Coteau is a distinct, 50 to 100 km wide band of knob and kettle topography that extends for over 1200 km through the Great Plains from central South Dakota northwestward into west-central Saskatchewan [65]. The terrain in this region is rougher and the elevation (550 to 1400 m) greater than in the Central Saskatchewan Plains to the east. In some areas "badlands" topography has developed with local relief being as much as 150 m. The Coteau is an important geomorphic feature of the Plains and contains many brackish and to hypersaline lakes (Figure 5).
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Ten thousand years ago, the last glacier had to climb a steep topographical rise, the "Missouri Escarpment," to continue its southwesterly path over the area known as Lostwood Refuge. The climbing ice pushed tons of material, "glacial drift," ahead of it and deposited it just beyond the escarpment.
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