A new bathymetric map, based mainly on Seabeam data, has been established for the Goban Spur area during a postcruise survey of DSDP Leg 80. Using both Seabeam data and a new series of eight seismic profiles obtained perpendicular to the continental margin, we have constructed a new detailed structural map of the Goban Spur continental margin which clearly reveals Caledonian and Variscan trends. Both the thinning of the Goban Spur continental crust, from Early Cretaceous (late Cimmerian phase) to middle Albian time, and subsequent widening of the adjacent oceanic domain, from middle Albian to Campanian time, resulted from tensional movements in a N70° direction which followed Caledonian trends. During the rifting phase, the tops of the tilted fault blocks remained close to sea level. The rapid subsidence of the margin seems to have occurred in the early Albian during the last stage of rifting.Eocene intraplate deformation affected the whole Goban Spur continental margin, but is particularly evident at the Pastouret Ridge, a reactivated oceanic fracture zone. The oceanic domain underwent a slight intraplate compression, which fractured the old oceanic crust through its entire thickness, probably along previous zones of weakness, such as fracture zones.