rift -- n. A long, narrow crack in the entire thickness of the Earth's crust, which is bounded by normal faults on either side and forms as the crust is pulled apart; v. To split the Earth's crust; rift zone- n.
rift (graben) A valley caused by extension of the Earth's crust. Its floor forms as a portion of the crust moves downward along normal faults .
The East African Rift
To test the merits of space imagery for finding fractures on Earth's continents, we examined a region, in which these are clearly visible and reliably mapped, as a ground-truth site using Landsat and SPOT scenes.
Rift Zone between two diverging tectonic plates. The mid-oceanic ridge is an area where such plate divergence is occurring. Rift Valley Steep sided valley found on the Earth's surface created by tectonic rifting.
The Great Global Rift, running along the Mid Atlantic Ridge, was discovered by Maurice Ewing and Bruce Heezen in 1953 while the mountain range under the Arctic was found in 1954 by the Arctic Institute of the USSR.
Another type of volcanic island occurs where a mid-ocean rift reaches the surface. There are two examples: Iceland, which is the world's largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen.
- CleanTOPO2 includes terrestrial areas below sea level, such as Death Valley and the Dead Sea rift valley. Be aware in your software that including an ocean level set to zero will inundate these dry areas with water.
An elevated area of the sea floor in the center of an ocean basin with rugged topography, a central rift-valley and recurring seismic activity.
 See also: Surface, Feature, Region, Area, Map
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