Basins on the Brazilian and Angolan margins formed during the rifting of Brazil and Africa and eventual opening of the South Atlantic from the late Jurassic to Cretaceous (Fig. 1). Key components include the Campos Basin, by far the most important hydrocarbon province in the Brazilian margin, accounting for more than 80% of Brazil's total hydrocarbon production. The Santos Basin, to the south, is less well explored, but early studies suggest it may have similar reserves and, in light of recent discoveries in pre-salt/ syn-rift packages. Angola is one of the world's largest centres for oil and gas exploration and production. The Kwanza Basin is conjugate to the Campos Basin and shows many features that suggest the influence of pre-existing basement structures at depth. In both margins, brittle faults / some of them basin-bounding structures, are exposed onshore, providing a unique opportunity to analyse directly the influence of pre-existing basement structures on the geometry of intra-basin and basin-bounding faults. Structural complexity in rifted passive margins is linked to along-strike variations in the obliquity of pre-existing structures relative to the regional extension vector. Much of the complexity can be related to the influence and reactivation of pre-existing basement structures. The mechanisms of this inheritance and how they determine fault system location, geometry & evolution are little understood. The student will use a combination of regional- to outcrop-scale studies onshore and sub-surface seismic interpretations offshore to improve our understanding of the role of basement geology in the development of the Brazilian and Angolan conjugate margins. Diagnostic structures include: non-Andersonian, polymodal fault patterns; partitioned domains of wrench- and extension-dominated transtensional deformation; local strike-slip inversion events and segmentation of rift basins. Ultimately, the results of this project will lead to the first fully integrated onshore/surface to offshore/sub-surface study of the South Atlantic conjugate margins in South America and Africa. A clear understanding of the role played by basement structures will provide critical geological constraints on uncertainty associated with identification and evaluation of syn-rift/ post-rift plays that lie beneath salt and/or deeper water. The student will join the Petroleum Geoscience PhD Scholarship Programme, where he or she will get additional monthly courses from petroleum industry professionals, career advice and encouragement. This scheme has a full time coordinator in Durham, is supported by 7 companies (as well as the DTI) and is unique in Europe. The student will receive a thorough training in modern methods of marine geophysics, including experience in the use of state-of-the-art software on modern workstations. He/she would be exposed to several industry oftware packages (e.g. GeoFrame, Landmark, TrapTester, 2DMove & Inside Reality). The student will present at Departmental seminars, and national and international conferences, and prepare journal papers. The University and Department provide an extensive skills training course for postgraduate students, including computing, bibliographic work, scientific writing, entrepreneurial skills and scientific ethics. The student will join a vibrant research community with enormous scope for cross-disciplinary interaction with colleagues working on related generic and regional geological issues.