The White Sea Rift System is a complex of rifts manifested as numerous individual grabens located chiefly in the White Sea but including onshore areas and a strip of the Barents Sea. The rifts run in a subparallel manner from northwest to southeast where the rift system continues under the East European Platform. The system or complex originated due to extensional tectonics acting during the Middle to Late Riphean in the Proterozoic.