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The Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) or Keweenawan Rift is a 2,000 km (1,200 mi) long geological rift in the center of the North American continent and south-central part of the North American plate. It formed when the continent's core, the North American craton , began to split apart during the Mesoproterozoic era of the Precambrian , about 1.1 ...
[4]: 7 This zone of crustal thinning and fracturing is the Midcontinent Rift System; it extends in a boomerang shape for over 2,200 km (1,400 mi) from northeastern Kansas northward through Iowa, under the Twin Cities of Minnesota, beneath Lake Superior, and then south through the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan and beneath the central Lower ...
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One billion years ago, the Midcontinent Rift System began to extend along a 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) path, [10] across both the Canadian Shield and the Stable Platform. The rift failed, then crustal movement reversed. A range formed then eroded, forming basins on either side of a horst.
(The ridge also has a secondary rift valley running its length.) The width is an average taken along the spreading ridges (Georgia–Senegal, Brazil – Bight of Benin, etc.). The greatest depth is the Romanche Trench. (The Puerto Rico Trench is not part of the rift system.) Great Rift Valley: 6,000 km (3,700 mi) 220 km (140 mi) 2 km (1 mi)
The Keweenawan Supergroup is a supergroup of volcanic and sedimentary rocks that fill the Midcontinent Rift System in the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. [1] [2] It is about 30 kilometers (19 mi) thick and it formed about 1.1 billion years ago. [3]
Over 1,100 mya, a rift formed and lava emerged from cracks along the edges of the rift valley. This Midcontinent Rift System extended from the lower peninsula of Michigan north to the current Lake Superior, southwest through the lake to the Duluth area, and south through eastern Minnesota down into what is now Kansas. [5]
The fault thrusts lava flows of the Midcontinent Rift System onto sedimentary rocks of the Jacobsville Sandstone. The fault is part of the inversion of the Midcontinent Rift where a region that had previously undergone extension experienced significant contraction. This contraction occurred during the final stages of the Grenvillian orogeny. [2]