Tafelberg (''Table Mountain'')] is a large flat-topped hill in

Curaçao Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includ ...

, an island state in the

Dutch Caribbean The Dutch Caribbean (historically known as the Dutch West Indies) are the New World territories, colonies, and countries (former and current) of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea, mainly the norther ...

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge, or hill, bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and standing distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks, such as shales, capped by a ...

is in southeastern Curaçao, near the Santa Barbara beach. It is high, making it only the fourth-highest point on Curaçao behind the Christoffelberg and two intermediate peaks, all in the volcanic northwest of the island. It is formed mostly of the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

that forms the south-east of Curaçao, although there are also commercially-significant phosphate and

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime (mineral), lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of Science, scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcare ...

sand deposits. Fossils of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

giant tortoises, Chelonoidis, of an estimated carapace length have been found in fill deposits. The vegetation of the area is sparse, owing to the endemic lack of water on Curaçao. Comparisons of grazed and inaccessibly ungrazed areas show that the natural vegetation was predominantly of the

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a Family (biology), family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the Tropics, tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and on ...

'' Tillandsia flexuosa'', but that this could not tolerate grazing and since the introduction of livestock by humans, primarily goats, has largely been replaced by annual grasses, prickly pear and shrubby acacias.

Mining

Phosphate mining began at Santa Barbara in the 1870s, although by 1900 it had been abandoned and the island was in an economically near-derelict state. Mining stopped in 1891, largely owing to a dispute between the landowner and John Godden, the English operator of the mine, and the last exports were in 1895, after 175,000 tons had been exported. It re-opened though in 1913 and was still in operation at the time of visit in 1947. From 1914, the entire economy of Curaçao was re-invigorated by the construction of the to refine Venezuelan crude oil. The first railway on the island was built for phosphate traffic, a gravity-worked cable

funicular A funicular ( ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep grade (slope), slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to ...

from the mountain to the harbour on Fuikbaai near Nieuwpoort.See :File:Transport bij de fosfaatmijn van het bedrijf Curaçao bij de Tafelberg op Curaçao, Bestanddeelnr 252-7412.jpg Limestone is also mined in the area and with the great expansion and prosperity post-WWII, this was in demand for the production of

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

and, with local sand,

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

for local construction, aided by cheap fuel as distillation waste from the refinery. By the 1960s, this had led to a perceptible change in the shape of the mountain when viewed from a distance. To preserve its appearance, mining since has adopted a 'hollow-tooth' strategy, where mining proceeds and has hollowed out much of the volume of the mountain, whilst preserving its outer periphery, at least for the remaining Northern face. File:De fosfaatmijn van het bedrijf Curaçao bij de Tafelberg op Curaçao, Bestanddeelnr 252-7414.jpg, Phosphate mining in 1947 File:De fosfaatmijn van het bedrijf Curaçao bij de Tafelberg op Curaçao, Bestanddeelnr 252-7413.jpg, Phosphate mine in 1947 File:De Tafelberg te Curaçao, Bestanddeelnr 252-2317.jpg, In 1955, before mining changed the shape of the hill

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{Cite web , title=Curaçao's Curious Tafelberg Mountain , author=Steve Bennett , website=Uncommon Caribbean , date=27 May 2016 , url=https://www.uncommoncaribbean.com/curacao/curacaos-curious-tafelberg-mountain/ , accessdate=5 April 2019 {{Cite journal , last=Amaral , first=Afrânio Do. , title=Geochelone from the Pleistocene of Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles , journal=

Copeia ''Ichthyology & Herpetology'' (formerly ''Copeia'') is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in ichthyology and herpetology that was originally named after Edward Drinker Cope, a prominent American researcher in these fi ...

, year=1963 , issue=3 , pages=579-580 , doi=10.2307/1441492 , jstor=1441492 {{Cite journal , last=Van Soest , first=Jaap , title=Curaçao and its Economy at the Turn of the Century , journal= Social and Economic Studies , volume=26 , issue=1 , year=1977 , pages=38-62 , jstor=27861640 {{Cite journal , last=Van Soest , first=Jaap , title=On The Account Of Curaçao: Two Centuries of Fiscal Legislation for Trade and Industry , journal= Social and Economic Studies , volume=29 , issue=2/3 , year=1980 , pages=220-246 , jstor=27861891 {{Cite journal , last=Cleland , first=Herdman F. , title=Curacao, a Losing Colonial Venture , journal= Bulletin of the American Geographical Society , volume=41 , issue=3 , year=1909 , pages=129-138 , doi=10.2307/200704 , jstor=200704 {{Cite web , title=Phosphate , website=Historia di Aruba , url=http://www.historiadiaruba.aw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=35&lang=en {{Cite journal , last=Debrot , first=Adolphe O. , first2=John A. , last2=De Freitas , title=A Comparison of Ungrazed and Livestock-Grazed Rock Vegetations in Curacao , journal= Biotropica , volume=25 , issue=3 , year=1993 , pages=270-280 , doi=10.2307/2388785 , jstor=2388785 Landforms of Curaçao