ScienceAugust 9, 2026
grabens
GRAH-buhnz
Definition
Elongated, depressed blocks of the Earth's or another planet's crust that have subsided between two parallel faults.
Etymology
The word is borrowed directly from the German word 'Graben', meaning 'ditch' or 'trench', and was adopted into English geological terminology in the late 19th century.
In the news
In the article, grabens are identified as small, shallow troughs found on top of larger contraction structures on Mercury, serving as evidence of the planet's ongoing cooling and tectonic activity.
Mercury is the Solar System’s smallest planet, but its metallic core fills about 85 per cent of its radius, leaving a rocky shell so thin that cooling has crumpled the surface into cliffs hundreds of kilometres long
Read the full article ↗Space Daily