Rift Valley

Rift Valley  (rft)

See Great Rift Valley.

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rift valley

n.

A valley that has developed along a rift, especially one bounded by normal faults in an area of lithospheric thinning.

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rift valley

Noun

a long narrow valley resulting from the subsidence of land between two faults

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rift valley

1. A long, narrow valley lying between two normal geologic faults. Rift valleys usually form where the Earth's lithosphere has become thin through extension associated with plate-tectonic processes. Unlike river valleys and glacial valleys that form primarily through erosional processes, rift valleys form by the subsidence of the intermediate land as the faults are pulled apart. They are on the order of thousands of kilometers long and wide. See more at normal fault.

2. The deep undersea valley located along the center of the mid-ocean ridge. It is associated with the crustal thinning and extensional forces that cause magma to upwell onto the ocean floor.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

rift valley - a valley with steep sides; formed by a rift in the earth's crust vale, valley - a long depression in the surface of the land that usually contains a river