Seismic stratigraphic analysis of the continental shelf north of the Falkland Islands confirms that it is dissected by a significant extensional fault system that broadly defines the North Falkland Basin. The basin comprises a series of extensional subbasins that developed during two distinct rift episodes. Analysis of structural styles shows that while extension occurred predominantly on a series of planar normal faults with changes in rift polarity in northern areas, the southern portion of the basin has listric faults that sole out along preexisting thrusts. After rifting, the basin largely underwent postrift thermal subsidence with the passive infill of remnant topography; however, evidence exists for at least two uplift events affecting the postrift sediments. The earlier period of uplift tilted the basin to the south, resulting in the formation of a southerly prograding forced regressive wedge; the later episode of uplift tilted the basin northward, resulting in truncation of earlier strata and minor compressional reactivation and inversion in southernmost parts of the basin. The later tilting allows for the possibility that the original rift system once extended across the Falkland Islands. Although the lack of well control does not permit a comprehensive assessment of hydrocarbon plays, the seismic data do at least demonstrate the trapping potential of the basin. Interpreted structural and depositional styles found within the prerift, synrift, and postrift sequences are similar to those found in proven hydrocarbon provinces such as the North Sea and the Gulf of Suez. The success or failure of the frontier hydrocarbon province thus is likely to depend upon factors other than structural ones.

Devonian and older rock samples from outcrops in the northern Scottish Highlands have undergone protracted cooling since they reached palaeotemperatures of ∼110°C or more in the Late Palaeozoic to Early Mesozoic. The results not only suggest that the northern Highlands region has experienced kilometre-scale exhumation since the Late Palaeozoic, but also that Devonian and possibly Permo-Carboniferous sedimentation was probably more extensive than current outcrop patterns would imply. A Permian outcrop sample from the Minches Basin reached a maximum palaeotemperature of 70–90°C prior to the onset of cooling in the Early Tertiary, while data from Devonian and older samples suggest an acceleration in the rate of cooling in the Early Tertiary. The magnitude of Early Tertiary palaeotemperatures on the mainland adjacent to the Inner Moray Firth (IMF) indicate similar amounts of Tertiary exhumation to those derived from compaction analyses for the IMF. However, to the west, the magnitude of Tertiary cooling cannot be solely ascribed to exhumation and a contribution of heating due to hydrothermal effects and/or elevated heat flow associated with the Tertiary Igneous Complex may also need to be invoked.

In response to the break-up of Gondwana the Gamtoos Basin rifted in the Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian with reactivation of Cape Fold Belt thrusts as extensional structures. Rifting was rapid with an initial divergent syn-rift sequence passing into a parallel passive infill sequence as rifting waned. Dextral movement on the Agulhas–Falkland Fracture Zone during the Valanginian resulted in reactivation of Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian structures with extensional, compressional and strike-slip senses of movement. Post-rift thermal subsidence phase of basin evolution began during latest Valanginian times with passive infill and onlap of the topography created during the Valanginian. Subsequently the basin began to be uplifted due to the westward migration of the Falkland Plateau and Natal Valley spreading centre past the basin resulting in a non-depositional hiatus and local channelling before erosion during the Cenomanian. Following renewed subsidence the basin experienced uplift during the Palaeocene and Eocene the cause of which remains problematic but is contemporaneous with igneous intrusion in southern Africa.

Apatite fission-track analyses from the area north of Jameson Land, East Greenland, indicate that the region has undergone at least three phases of cooling during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, Two major periods of cooling during the Tertiary have been identified: a middle Tertiary episode, in which cooling began between 40 and 30 Ma, and a late Tertiary episode, in which cooling began between 10 and 5 Ma, The middle Tertiary event is synchronous with emplacement of major intrusive bodies associated with continental rifting hydrothermal effects. The late Tertiary event appears to be related to erosion associated with uplift resulting from changes in the North Atlantic spreading direction and associated events. No paleothermal effects have been identified related to the onset of rifting in the early Tertiary. Results from samples farthest from the continental margin reveal an earlier event in which fooling began between 225 and 165 Ma. The origin of this event is not clear, but it may reflect uplift and erosion associated with recognized unconformities within the Jurassic section.

Similarities in the styles and relative timings of tectonic events in the Outeniqua Basin, South Africa and the North Falkland Basin suggest that basin formation in both regions may have preceded rotation of the Falklands microplate. Contrary to previous models for the break-up of Gondwana, which suggest Jurassic rotation, the data implies Valanginian rotation, contemporaneous with the first recorded motion on the Agulhas Falkland Fracture Zone and South Atlantic rifting. The data also suggests that the formation of the Falkland Plateau Basin may also be a Cretaceous event as opposed to the previously assumed Jurassic age. Such a model is consistent with new offshore seismic evidence while the inconclusive nature of the supportive evidence for Jurassic rotation does not exclude later rotation as a possibility.

Although it has generally been believed that structural styles in the Inner Moray Firth (IMF) have been largely controlled by strike-slip movements on the Great Glen Fault (GGF), integrated seismic and field studies suggest otherwise. Instead, most structural styles appear to have developed and evolved as a result of dip-slip extension and thermal subsidence consequent upon two phases of rifting during the Permo-Triassic and Late Jurassic and subsequent regional uplift and local inversion during the Tertiary. The integration of demonstrable thickening of Kimmeridgian–Portlandian intervals across the GGF with sedimentological information from onshore outcrops and cored wells suggests that the basin had a half-graben geometry during the Late Jurassic with a depocentre adjacent to the Helmsdale Fault, analogous to half-graben geometries which characterized other Late Jurassic sequences in Greenland and the South Viking Graben. Progressive marine onlap suggests that more gentle regional (thermal) subsidence took place in an underfilled basin, during subsequent Early Cretaceous deposition. However, the seismic data and subcrop information show that the geometries resulting from such classic rift- and thermally-driven phases of extension were modified by Cenozoic regional uplift and inversion in response to intraplate compression resulting from NE Atlantic (Thulean) and Alpine events. These events also appear to have effected minor strike-slip motion on the GGF, with the development of spectacular ‘flower structure’ and ‘helicoidal’ geometries, and caused limited oblique-slip reactivation of some extensional structures. The most notable modification of structural styles occurs in areas adjacent to the major basin-bounding faults. Particularly complex structural inversion geometries occur in the northwest corner of the basin adjacent to the Wick Fault while anomalously-trending folds developed in response to space problems in the Sutherland Terrace, between the Helmsdale Fault and the GGF, as a result of opposing senses of slip on these faults.