Hills vs mountains: the exact and definitive definition (any geologist here?)

Nature Talk
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I doubt it’s the only one, there must be many eroded mountains around the world that got to that state of hills, like northern parts of Ural are very low (the whole thing is too old, started forming 350mil years ago) as well as new mountains, e.g. Zhiguli Mountains started froming around 7mil years ago and the highest point there is 380 metres. I’m sure where plates collide now there must be new hilly-looking ranges.

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That’s good to know. I wonder if Medoc Mountain has a similar origin. It’s only 325’ and also only 40-60’ higher than the surrounding area. https://www.ncparks.gov/state-parks/medoc-mountain-state-park

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We also have plateaus and mesas which are elevated but (relatively) level topographic features. A mesa is typically a flat-topped elevated feature that is fairly well-defined. However the Colorado and Mogollon plateaus in Arizona and New Mexico contain named mountains within them. Tablelands is another term for a geographic area that contains mesas and plateaus. But I’m not a geologist so not sure how strict or loose any of these definitions are.

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When I lived in NH, things not in the Presidentials were called hills (my home was near Moose Hill and Pill Hill where the docs all lived-- and you drove up a 2-mile incline to get there). Now in MA they call small outcrops such epithets as Horn Pond Mountain, Mount Tom-- but no mountains in Massachusetts are recognized by the Appalachian Mountain Club in its list of Four-Thousand Footers.
So as a New Englander, I can’t relate to the term mountain describing something not rocky-- be that substrate basalt, dolomite… something caused by colliding or shifting tectonic plates. An interesting review here-- https://outforia.com/types-of-mountains/
The crucial thing for iNat is what the habitat is-- so elevation and soil type will tell me far more about a plant species than the descriptor hill or mountain. The alpine species found in Newfoundland surely are not mountainous.

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