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Rift valleys are also known to occur on other terrestrial planets and natural satellites. The 4,000 km long Valles Marineris on Mars is believed by planetary geologists to be a large rift system. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Some features of Venus, most notably, the 4,000 km Devana Chasma [ 9 ] and a part of the western Eistla, and possibly also Alta and Bell ...
Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise, and in the continental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley. Divergent boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system.
This paradoxically results in divergence which was only incorporated in the theory of plate tectonics in 1970, but still results in net destruction when summed over major plate boundaries. [2] Divergent boundaries are areas where plates move away from each other, forming either mid-ocean ridges or rift valleys. These are also known as ...
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge includes a deep rift valley that runs along the axis of the ridge for nearly its entire length. This rift marks the actual boundary between adjacent tectonic plates, where magma from the mantle reaches the seafloor, erupting as lava and producing new crustal material for the plates.
The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. [1] It was formerly considered to be part of a larger Great Rift Valley that extended north to Asia Minor.
A team led by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen concluded that there was an enormous mountain chain with a rift valley at its crest, running up the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists named it the 'Mid-Atlantic Ridge'. Other research showed that the ridge crest was seismically active [45] and fresh lavas were found in the rift valley. [46]
The half grabens may have alternating polarities along the rift axis, dividing the rift valley into segments. [ 4 ] Intracontinental and marine rift basins such as the Gulf of Suez , East African Rift , Rio Grande rift system and the North Sea often contain a series of half-graben sub-basins, with the polarity of the dominant fault system ...
Map of the Lake Baikal Rift Zone from the USGS factsheet. The Baikal Rift Zone is a series of continental rifts centered beneath Lake Baikal in southeastern Russia. Current strain in the rifts tends to be extending with some shear movement. A series of basins form along the zone for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi), creating a rift valley.