![]() Our model suggests a causal link between changes in extension direction and velocity during continental extension and the generation of marginal structures such as the enigmatic pre-salt sag basin and the São Paulo High. By quantitatively accounting for crustal deformation in the Central and West African Rift Zones, we have been able to indirectly construct the kinematic history of the pre-break-up evolution of the conjugate west African–Brazilian margins. Based on structural restoration of the conjugate South Atlantic margins and intracontinental rift basins in Africa and South America, we achieve a tight-fit reconstruction which eliminates the need for previously inferred large intracontinental shear zones, in particular in Patagonian South America. ![]() We have compiled and assimilated data from these intraplated rifts and constructed a revised plate kinematic model for the pre-break-up evolution of the South Atlantic. While the relative motions between South America and Africa for post-break-up times are well resolved, many issues pertaining to the fit reconstruction and particularly the relation between kinematics and lithosphere dynamics during pre-break-up remain unclear in currently published plate models. The South Atlantic rift basin evolved as a branch of a large Jurassic–Cretaceous intraplate rift zone between the African and South American plates during the final break-up of western Gondwana. OPEN ACCESS - Full text and supplementary data available at
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