The Dnieper-Donets Rift or Pripyat-Dnieper-Donets Rift (also referred as a "paleorift" and " aulacogen") is an east-west running

rift In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben ...

in the Sarmatian Craton that developed and was most active in the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

. The rift extends from the

Caspian Depression The Caspian Depression or the Caspian Lowland is a low-lying flatland region encompassing the northern part of the Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. It is the larger northern part of the wider Aral–Caspian Depressio ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

to northern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

passing by the

Donbas The Donbas (, ; ) or Donbass ( ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the Donbas is occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The word ''Donbas'' is a portmanteau formed fr ...

region. The rift separates the Voronezh Massif in the north from the Ukrainian Shield in south. The Dniepr-Donets Paleorift was the site of

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

magmatic activity that begun in Late Frasnian and peaked in the

Famennian The Famennian is the later of two faunal stages in the Late Devonian epoch. The most recent estimate for its duration is that it lasted from around 371.1 to 359.3 million years ago. An earlier 2012 estimate, still used by the International Commis ...

caused by a

mantle plume A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic ho ...

Extensional tectonics Extensional tectonics is concerned with the structures formed by, and the Tectonics, tectonic processes associated with, the stretching of a planetary body's Crust (geology), crust or lithosphere. Deformation styles The types of structure and the ...

were also most active during the Famennian. There have been suggestions that the Dniepr-Donets Paleorift is related to the coeval Kola Alkaline Province.

References

{{Authority control Geology of European Russia Geology of Ukraine Paleozoic rifts and grabens Paleozoic Europe Donets basin Dnieper basin