The Upper Rhine Plain, Rhine Rift Valley or Upper Rhine Graben (German: Oberrheinische Tiefebene or Oberrheingraben, French: Vallée du Rhin) is a major rift, about 350 km long and on average 50 km wide, between the cities of Frankfurt/Wiesbaden in the north and Basel in the south. Its southern section straddles the border between France and Germany. It forms part of the European Cenozoic Rift System, which extends across central Europe. The Upper Rhine Graben formed during the Oligocene as a response to the evolution of the Alps to the south and remains active to the present day. Today, the Rhine Rift Valley forms a downfaulted trough through which the River Rhine flows.
Read more about Upper Rhine Plain: Formation, Volcanic Activity, Seismic Activity, Upper Rhine Aquifer, Research, Temperature, External Links
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“You doubt we read the stars on high,
Nathless we read your fortunes true;
The stars may hide in the upper sky,
But without glass we fathom you.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“It was always startling to discover so plain a trail of civilized man there. I remember that I was strangely affected, when we were returning, by the sight of a ring-bolt well drilled into a rock, and fastened with lead, at the head of this solitary Ambejijis Lake.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)