The continent to ocean transition across the SW Iberian margin: The effect of syn-rift geometry on post-Mesozoic compression

The southwest Iberian margin, records the complex geological processes leading to continental extension, breakup and posterior post-rift compression. The interpretation of 2D seismic-reflection profiles from the margin, tied to exploration boreholes and outcrop data reveals that the inherited syn-rift geometry and rheology of both deep continental crust and overlaying sediments, plays a major role in the positioning and typology of the distinct structural styles resulting from the post-rift Late Cretaceous to present day basin inversion. The analysis of the syn- to post rift structural geometry allows estimating the position of the Ocean-Continent Transition. Compression is interpreted to have initiated as early as the latest Cretaceous, but is most significant through a period of time spanning the middle Eocene and the Late Oligocene-Miocene to recent times. Moreover, data reveals that shortening along and across the margin is neither synchronous nor similar