Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A usually elongated depression between geologic faults.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In geology, a trough-like area caused by the down-throw of a crustal fault-block.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun geology An elongated block of the Earth's crust that has dropped relative to the surrounding blocks
  • noun Plural form of graben.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German Graben, from Middle High German grabe, trench, from Old High German grabo, from graban, to dig; see ghrebh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from German Graben ("ditch"), from the verb graben ("to dig").

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Examples

  • Faults like these cause troughs to form, called graben, of which the heavily shadowed one is a good example.

    HiRISE: High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment 2010

  • What the new images show are the existence of "graben," massive valleys crossing the crater in an east-west direction, some up to a mile and a half wide.

    FOXNews.com 2010

  • They show that the bounding faults of the "graben" cut the Chumstick Formation and that the southwestern bounding fault really is a composed of northwesterly trending reverse faults and younger northerly strike-slip faults, both of which cut northwesterly striking folds in the Chumstick Formation.

    EurekAlert! - Breaking News 2009

  • Look closely along the western shore of Fecunditatis where you will see many such graben features.

    Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: March 19-21, 2010 | Universe Today 2010

  • Chances are this "little runway" was once a graben that which was flooded with magma.

    Santa Spied at Lunar North Pole… | Universe Today 2009

  • This isostatic rebound causes vertical uplift and the tensional forces due to the movement of the crust creates normal and graben faults.

    Mountain 2008

  • The mountains of western Anatolia extend from east to west and form a horst-graben system with deep furrows created by rivers such as the Edremit, Bakırçay, Gediz, Küçükmenderes and Büyük Menderes.

    Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests 2008

  • Each block moves vertically to compensate for the tensional forces producing normal and graben faults.

    Mountain 2008

  • The northern half includes a lower eastern mountain range 800-1,500 m high, nearly cut off by the 15 km wide Sungai Penuh valley graben and is about 75 km wide.

    Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, Indonesia 2008

  • It covers most of the West Barisan, West Alas and East Barisan ranges and is nearly divided by the Alas valley graben. 40% of the Park, mainly in the north, is steep and over 1,500 m; 12% of the Park only, in the lower southern half, is below 600 m but for 25 km runs along the coast.

    Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, Indonesia 2008

Comments

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  • A usually elongated depression between geologic faults.

    September 23, 2009