Tectonic and geophysical constraints on the evolution of the North Atlantic since the Jurassic

Over geological timescales Earth’s topography has been shaped by tectonic and geodynamic processes that evolved over varying spatial and temporal scales. However, understanding the relative contributions of these processes to the evolution of Earth’s topography remains a challenge, highlighting the need for quantitative time-dependent modelling. Here, I investigate some of these processes and their influences on the evolution of the North Atlantic, since the Jurassic. I develop a new plate reconstruction of the region, restoring stretched crust along its conjugate margins, and then embed this into a new global plate kinematic model, which is coupled to mantle flow models. The new plate reconstruction predicts the prerift, paleogeographic positions of all major continents across the region, and accounts for multiple episodes of extension. Discrepancies in the evolution of Mesozoic Iberia exist, as Pyrenean observations cannot be reconciled with Atlantic continental breakup between West Iberia and Newfoundland. The mantle flow models reveal that over the last 100 Myr a consistent pattern of convergent flow prevailed in the lowermost mantle near the tip of the stable African large low-shear velocity province, making it an ideal plume nucleation site beneath the North Atlantic. Model dynamic topography reveals that observations of widespread Paleocene and Early Eocene anomalous uplift, followed by subsidence, can be explained by the arrival of a ~ 2500 km plume beneath eastern Greenland during the Palaeocene. For northern Africa, these models are used to understand the relative contributions of mantle convection and eustasy for generating transient inland seas. I find that across the region dynamic subsidence amplified sea-level rise after the mid Cretaceous, resulting in inundation, while by the mid-Eocene, decreasing dynamic subsidence rates combined with a progressive sea-level fall resulted in an ongoing regression