A new central Pangaea fit (type A) is proposed for the late Ladinian (230 Ma), together with a plate motions model for the subsequent phases of rifting, continental breakup and initial\ud spreading in the central Atlantic. This model is based on: (1) a reinterpretation of the process of formation of the East Coast Magnetic Anomaly along the eastern margin of North America\ud and the corresponding magnetic anomalies at the conjugate margins of northwest Africa and the Moroccan Meseta; (2) an analysis of major rifting events in the central Atlantic, Atlas and\ud central Mediterranean and (3) a crustal balancing of the stretched margins of North America, Moroccan Meseta and northwest Africa. The process of fragmentation of central Pangaea can be described by three major phases spanning the time interval from the late Ladinian (230 Ma) to the Tithonian (147.7 Ma). During the first phase, from the late Ladinian (230 Ma) to the latest Rhaetian (200 Ma), rifting proceeded along the eastern margin of North America, the northwest African margin and theHigh, Saharan and Tunisian Atlas, determining the formation of a separate Moroccan microplate at the interface between Gondwana and Laurasia. During the second phase, from the latest Rhaetian (200 Ma) to the late Pliensbachian (185 Ma), oceanic crust started forming between the East Coast and Blake Spur magnetic anomalies, whereas the Morrocan Meseta simply continued to rift away from North America. During this time interval, the Atlas rift reached its maximum extent. Finally, the third phase, encompassing the\ud time interval from the late Pliensbachian (185 Ma) to chron M21 (147.7 Ma), was triggered by the northward jump of the main plate boundary connecting the central Atlantic with the Tethys area. Therefore, as soon as rifting in the Atlas zone ceased, plate motion started along complex fault systems between Morocco and Iberia, whereas a rift/drift transition occurred in the northern segment of the central Atlantic, between Morocco and the conjugate margin of Nova Scotia. The inversion of the Atlas rift and the subsequent formation of the Atlas mountain belt occurred during the Oligocene–early Miocene time interval. In the central Atlantic, this event was associated with higher spreading rates of the ridge segments north of the Atlantis FZ. An estimate of 170 km of dextral offset of Morocco relative to northwest Africa, in the\ud central Atlantic, is required by an analysis of marine magnetic anomalies. Five plate tectonic reconstructions and a computer animation are proposed to illustrate the late Triassic and\ud Jurassic process of breakup of Pangaea in the central Atlantic and Atlas regions

This paper presents a new southern North Atlantic plate model from Late Cretaceous to present, with the aim of constraining the kinematics of the Iberian plate during the last 83.5 Myr. This model is presented along with a detailed isochron map generated through the analysis of 3 aeromagnetic tracks and ~400 ship tracks from the National Centers for Environmental Information database. We present a new technique to obtain well‐constrained estimates of the Iberia‐North America plate motions from magnetic anomalies, overcoming the scarcity of large‐offset fracture zones and transform faults. We build an integrated kinematic model for NW Africa, Morocco, Iberia, Europe, and North America, which shows that the deformation is partitioned between Pyrenees and Betic‐Rif orogenic domain during the Late Cretaceous‐Oligocene time interval. In the Eastern Betics domain, the calculated amount of NW Africa‐Iberia convergence is ~80 km between 83.5 and 34 Ma, followed by ~150 km since the Oligocene. The motion of Iberia relative to Europe in the Central Pyrenees is characterized by overall NE directed transpressional motion during the Campanian and the Paleocene, followed by NW directed transpressional movement until the Lutetian and overall NNW directed convergence from Bartonian to Chattian. This motion occurs along the axis of the Bay of Biscay from the Santonian–Campanian boundary to the middle Priabonian, subsequently jumping to King's Trough at Anomaly 17 (36.62 Ma).

The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden represent two young basins that formed between Africa and Arabia since the early Oligocene, floored by oceanic crust or by transitional and thinned continental crust. While in the easternmost Gulf of Aden the rift–drift transition can be dated chron C6 (∼20.1 Ma), here we show that in the Red Sea the first pulse of sea floor spreading occurred during chron C3n.2n (∼4.6 Ma) around ∼17.1°N (present–day coordinates) and propagated southwards from this location, separating the Danakil microplate from Arabia. It is also shown that sea floor spreading between Arabia and Nubia started later, around chron 2A (∼2.58 Ma), and propagated northwards. At present, there is no magnetic evidence for the existence of a linear spreading center in the northern Red Sea at latitudes higher than ∼24°N and in the southern Red Sea below ∼14.8°N. The present–day plate kinematics of this region can be described with high accuracy by a network of five interacting plates (Nubia, Arabia, Somalia, Sinai, and Danakil) and six triple junctions. For times older than anomaly 2A (∼2.58 Ma) and up to anomaly 3, the absence of marine magnetic anomalies between Arabia and Nubia prevents a rigorous kinematic description of the five–plates system. However, there is strong evidence that the unique changes in plate motions during the last five Myrs were a dramatic slowdown at chron C2 (∼1.77 Ma) in the spreading or extension rates along the ridge and rift axes, thereby a good representation of the real plate motions can be obtained anyway by backward extension of the oldest Arabia – Nubia and Arabia – Danakil stage rotations determined on the basis of marine magnetic anomalies, respectively C2 – C2A and C2A – C3. The proposed kinematic reconstructions are accompanied by a geodynamic explanation for the genesis of large continent–continent fracture zones at the rift–drift transition and by an analysis of the strain associated with plate motions in Afar, northeastern Egypt, and Sinai.