Final answer:
The Basin and Range Province in Nevada is known for its distinctive mountain ranges and valleys resulting from extensional forces and normal faulting, creating fault-block mountains. This stands in contrast to the Valley and Ridge Province and the 'layer cake' geology of the Colorado Plateau.
Step-by-step explanation:
The desert location in the United States known for alternating mountain ranges and flat-bottomed valleys as a result of fault-block mountains is the Basin and Range Province. This region is characterized by a distinct topography of elongated mountain chains separated by wide, expansive valleys. It extends across several states, including Nevada, and is the consequence of significant geologic processes. The process governing this terrain's formation is due to the stretching and thinning of the Earth's crust, resulting in normal faulting where one block of earth, the hanging wall, moves down relative to the other block, the footwall, creating a series of mountain ranges and valleys, or basins.
The Basin and Range Province is contrasted by the Valley and Ridge Province in New Jersey, which was formed by different geologic processes. While the Basin and Range were formed primarily by extension, the Valley and Ridge province involves folding and thrust faulting from compressional forces very different from the extensional forces seen in the Basin and Range Province. Furthermore, the widespread, uniform uplift of the Colorado Plateau during the Laramide Orogeny leading to 'layer cake' geology, as seen in Capital Reef, Utah, presents yet another different geologic structure compared to the Basin and Range's fault block mountains.