The 'Death Valley' in south California, U.S.A. is an example of

A rift valley (or graben) is a landform created when a block of Earth's crust subsides between two parallel normal faults under regional crustal extension (tensional stress); the down-dropped block sinks relative to the uplifted blocks (horsts) on either side. This differs fundamentally from an anticlinal valley (produced when erosion strips away the crest of an upward rock fold, an anticline) and a synclinal valley (where the valley coincides with the trough of a downward fold, a syncline) — both fold-related landforms — and from an antecedent valley (a river valley that predates and has cut through a slowly rising landmass, maintaining its original course).

Death Valley lies in eastern California within the Basin and Range Province of the western United States, a region that has undergone east-west crustal extension since about 16 million years ago. The valley itself is a young pull-apart basin: since roughly the last 3-4 million years, linked strike-slip fault zones (the Northern and Southern Death Valley faults) together with normal faulting along the Black Mountains front have progressively dropped this crustal segment relative to the flanking Panamint Range to the west and the Amargosa/Black Mountains to the east. Continued subsidence has carried the valley floor to about 86 metres (282 feet) below sea level — the lowest point in North America — confirming it as a rift valley (graben/pull-apart basin), not a landform shaped by folding or by drainage history.

• Anticlinal Valley — would require Death Valley's floor to be the eroded crest of an upfolded rock layer; but the valley's low floor results from vertical fault movement, not from folding and subsequent erosion.

• Antecedent Valley — would require a persistent river that predates a slow regional uplift and has cut its course through the rising land; Death Valley's basin is a fault-bounded depression, not a river-cut valley across a rising ridge.

• Synclinal Valley — would require the valley to follow the trough of a downfolded rock layer; Death Valley's depression is produced by normal faulting between the Panamint and Amargosa ranges, not by the sagging of folded strata.

Independent descriptions from the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey both classify Death Valley as an active continental rift setting — the deepest graben in the Basin and Range province — confirming that Rift Valley is the standard and best-supported classification among the options offered.