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Two end-members characterize a continuum of continental extensional tectonism: rift settings and highly extended terrains. These different styles result in and are recorded by different extensional basins. Intracontinental rifts (e.g. East Africa, Lake Baikal) usually occur in thermally equilibrated crust of normal thickness. Rift settings commonly display alkali to tholeiitic magmatism, steeply dipping (45-60 degrees) bounding faults, slip rates < 1 mm yr(-1) and low-magnitude extension (10-25%). Total extension typically requires > 25 Myr. The fault and sub-basin geometry which dominates depositional style is a half-graben bounded by a steeply dipping normal fault. Associated basins are deep (6-10 km), and sedimentation is predominantly axial- or hangingwall-derived. Asymmetric subsidence localizes depocentres along the active basin-bounding scarp.

Highly extended continental terrains (e.g. Colorado River extensional corridor, the Cyclade Islands) represent a different tectonic end-member. They form in back-are regions where the crust has undergone dramatic thickening before extension, and usually reactivate recently deformed crust. Volcanism is typically calc-alkalic, and 80-90% of total extension requires much less time (< 10 Myr). Bounding faults are commonly active at shallow dips (15-35 degrees); slip rates (commonly > 2 mm yr(-1)) and bulk extension (often > 100%) are high.

The differences in extension magnitude and rate, volcanism, heat flow, and structural style suggest basin evolution will differ with tectonic setting. Supradetachment basins, or basins formed in highly extended terrains, have predominantly long, transverse drainage networks derived from the breakaway footwall. Depocentres are distal (10-20 km) to the main bounding fault. Basin fill is relatively thin (typically 1-3 km), probably due to rapid uplift of the tectonically and erosionally denuded footwall. Sedimentation rates are high (similar to 1 m kyr(-1)) and interrupted by substantial unconformities. In arid and semi-arid regions, fluvial systems are poorly developed and alluvial fans dominated by mass-wasting (debris-flow, rock-avalanche breccias, glide blocks) represent a significant proportion (30-50%) of basin fill. The key parameters for comparing supradetachment to rift systems are extension rate and amount, which are functions of other factors like crustal thickness, thermal state of the lithosphere and tectonic environment. Changes in these parameters over time appear to result in changes to basin systematics.