Rift lake

Faulted southeastern side of Svyatoy Nos peninsula, Lake Baikal – active faulting shown by faceted spurs.

A rift lake is a lake formed as a result of subsidence related to movement on faults within a rift zone, an area of extensional tectonics in the continental crust. They are often found within rift valleys and may be very deep. Rift lakes may be bounded by large steep cliffs along the fault margins.

Examples

• Lake Khuvsgul in northern Mongolia
• Rift Valley lakes, eastern Africa
• Lake Baikal in Siberia
• Lake Nipigon in Ontario
• Lake Vostok in Antarctica may have formed in a rift setting^[1]
• Lake Balaton in Hungary
• The Dead Sea on the border of Israel and Jordan, a pull-apart basin, formed along the Dead Sea Transform
• The Orcadian Basin – rift lakes formed during the Middle Devonian in northern Scotland ^[2]
• Lake Lockatong – a rift lake of Triassic age formed in the Newark Basin.^[3]
• Lake Elsinore, in the Elsinore Trough in Southern California
• The Salton Sea, in Southern California

References

1. ↑ Lake Vostok Workshop (1998). "Lake Vostok: A Curiosity or a Focus for Interdisciplinary Study?" (PDF). p. 83. Retrieved 29 January 2010.
2. ↑ Marshall,J.E.A. & Hewett,A.J. 2003. Devonian. In: Evans, D., Graham, C., Armour, A. & Bathurst, P. (eds): The Millennium Atlas: petroleum geology of the central and northern North Sea. London, the Geological Society of London, 65–81.
3. ↑ Stones of Princeton