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In geology, horst and graben (or range and valley) refers to topography consisting of alternating raised and lowered fault blocks known as horsts and grabens. The features are created by normal faulting and rifting caused by crustal extension . [ 1 ]
In physical geography and geology, a horst is a raised fault block bounded by normal faults. [1] Horsts are typically found together with grabens. While a horst is lifted or remains stationary, the grabens on either side subside. [2] This is often caused by extensional forces pulling apart the crust.
Graben often occur side by side with horsts. Horst and graben structures indicate tensional forces and crustal stretching. Graben are produced from parallel normal faults, where the displacement of the hanging wall is downward, while that of the footwall is upward. The faults typically dip toward the center of the graben from both sides.
Fault scarps are exposed on the horst block and expose the footwall of the normal fault. This is a type of block faulting known as grabens and horsts. This basin and range topography is symmetrical having equal slopes on both sides of the valleys and mountain ranges. Timelapse of tilted block faulting
A downthrown block between two normal faults dipping towards each other is a graben. A block stranded between two grabens, and therefore two normal faults dipping away from each other, is a horst. A sequence of grabens and horsts on the surface of the Earth produces a characteristic basin and range topography.
Lifted type block mountains have two steep sides exposing both sides scarps, leading to the horst and graben terrain seen in various parts of Europe including the Upper Rhine valley, a graben between two horsts – the Vosges mountains (in France) and the Black Forest (in Germany), and also the Rila – Rhodope Massif in Bulgaria, Southeast ...
Opposing normal faults link at depth producing a horst and graben geometry, where horst refers to the upthrown fault block and graben to the down dropped fault block. The average crustal thickness of the Basin and Range Province is approximately 30–35 km and is comparable to extended continental crust around the world. [4]
Although sediments arrive primarily from the unfaulted side of the half-graben, some erosion takes place on the fault escarpment of the main border fault, and this produces characteristic alluvial fans where confined channels emerge from the escarpment. [9] Lake Baikal is an unusually large and deep example of half-graben evolution. The lake is ...