Chapter 6 covers continental rifting and rift-related processes that operate when continental lithosphere is thinned and broken. It covers the two fundamental modes of rift initiation; active and passive rifting. It also cover the role of mantle plumes and pre-rift structures that weaken the lithosphere. Magmatism typically varies along rift systems and is often related to plume influence during rift initiation. The main structural elements of rifts are presented, from rift transfer zones to fault relay ramps, together with the evolution of rifts in terms of fault growth, strain, crustal thinning and rift (a)symmetry. While some rifts open orthogonally, most rifts experience oblique rifting. Other rifts again show evidence of two or more phases of extension, and the interference between the two phases in terms of fault orientation and interaction is discussed. Different tectonic settings, such as back-arc rifting, transform fault settings, and orogen-related rifting are covered. The deposition of sediments in relation to structural elements is important, and both synrift and postrift sedimentation are discussed. Rifts also host important hydrocarbon and mineral resources, and examples from northern Europe and North America are provided in this chapter.

Irrespective of dynamic topography, flexure influences landscape evolution in many tectonic settings. The shape of a flexural rim flank uplift formed by loading or unloading of the crust, for example, can induce a family of river systems in the landscape including dip, scarp and break-through streams. The strongest evidence of flexure’s influence though is from studies of large river systems in fold and thrust belts which incise sufficiently to unload the crust and form anticlines and in foreland basins where rivers exiting a fold and thrust belt may be redirected by flexure to flow along structure.

Perhaps most importantly, flexure affects structural inheritance and the Wilson Cycle. The Earth’s elastic lithosphere that can retain a memory of a geological event, appear both strong and weak on long timescales, and support stresses of hundreds of MPa ensures that flexure will play a role in explaining structural inheritance. Inheritance plays a major role in evolution of sedimentary basins as they morph from one type to another, in orogenic belts where thin-skin and thick-skin tectonic styles may vary along strike a fold and thrust belt, and in the Wilson Cycle where continents disperse and reassemble and oceans open and close.