A new swath bathymetry compilation of the Gulf of Cadiz Area and SW Iberia is presented. The new map is the result of a collaborative research performed after year 2000 by teams from 7 European countries and 14 research institutions. This new dataset allow for the first time to present and to discuss the missing link in the plate boundary between Eurasia and Africa in the Central Atlantic. A set of almost linear and sub parallel dextral strike-slip faults, the SWIM Faults (SWIM is the acronym of the ESF EuroMargins project "Earthquake and Tsunami hazards of active faults at the South West Iberian Margin: deep structure, high-resolution imaging and paleoseismic signature") was mapped using a the new swath bathymetry compilation available in the area. The SWIM Faults form a narrow band of deformation over a length of 600 km coincident with a small circle centred on the pole of rotation of Africa with respect to Eurasia, This narrow band of deformation connects the Gloria Fault to the Rif-Tell Fault Zone, two segments of the plate boundary between Africa and Eurasia. In addition, the SWIM faults cuts across the Gulf of Cadiz, in the Atlantic Ocean, where the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake, M∼8.5-8.7, and tsunami were generated, providing a new insights on its source location.

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U-series age patterns obtained on reef framework-forming cold-water corals collected over a nearly 6,000 km long continental margin sector, extending from off Mauritania to the south-western Barents Sea reveal strong climate influences on the geographical distribution and sustained development of these ecosystems. During glacial times densely populated cold-water coral reefs flourished in the temperate east Atlantic, where at present only scarce live coral occurrences exist. In contrast, climate warming induces a rapid northward colonization of cold-water coral reefs with the biogeographic limit advancing from ∼45• N to ∼70• N. Thus, we invoke here that north-south oscillations of the polar front during the past glacial-interglacial cycles and the consequent displacement of cold nutrient-rich intermediate waters and productivity drives the decline and expansion of cold-water coral ecosystems and its biogeographic limits in the northeast Atlantic.

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