From orogenic collapse to rifting: A case study of the northern Porcupine Basin, offshore Ireland

摘要

Offshore Ireland, the North Atlantic opening is generally interpreted as successive, 10-to-15-Myr-long, rifting events during the Mesozoic. However, their interaction is poorly documented in terms of structural inheritance and fault reactivation. From extensive seismic and well data in the northern Porcupine Basin, we show that extension actually evolved over an abnormal period of ca. 220 Myrs with overlapping tectonic stages that, all together, reflect the Irish Atlantic Margin construction from the Palaeozoic.