Abstract The Norwegian Sea continental margin is dominated by two major basins with a very thick Cretaceous basin fill: the Vøring and Møre Basins. The basins are flanked by the uplifted mainland and the Cretaceous Trøndelag Platform to the east and by the Møre and Vøring Marginal Highs capped by Eocene lavas to the west. The tectonic development of the area is controlled by two structural trends: NE-SW and NW-SE. The area has been tectonically active from Carboniferous to Late Pliocene time with the main tectonic phases in Late Palaeozoic, late Mid-Jurassic-Early Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary time. The general tectonic development comprised a long period of extension and rifting that ended in Early Eocene time by continental separation, major volcanism and subsequent sea-floor spreading in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea. In Carboniferous to Early Cretaceous time the extensional tectonics were related to within-plate continental rifting. The tectonics of the Late Cretaceous and the Tertiary periods were controlled by the relative movements along plate boundaries. The overall NE-SW structural grain is constituted by faults and basin axes that probably originated in Late Palaeozoic time and were active during all subsequent tectonic phases. The transverse NW-SE trend is expressed as major lineaments that probably reflect the old, Precambrian grain of the basement. These lineaments, two of which are the continuation into the continental crust of major oceanic fracture zones, controlled the tectonic activity throughout Cretaceous and Tertiary time and constitute the boundaries between the major structural provinces of the area. The differentiation into the Cretaceous basins and the bounding platforms and marginal highs started by the late Mid-Jurassic-Early Cretaceous extensional phase. The subsequent Cretaceous subsidence history, where the basin flanks formed by flexuring rather than faulting, resulted in an exceptionally thick basin fill. In the Vøring Basin the Cretaceous development comprised an early thermal subsidence phase and a post-Cenomanian phase of tectonically driven subsidence involving intermittent phases of normal faulting and compression and folding. The Vøring Basin was tectonically active also during Tertiary time with the main phases of strike-slip-compression coinciding with the Alpine orogenies in Late Eocene and Mid-Miocene time. Within the Vøring Basin there is evidence of the formation of a fossil opal A-opal-CT transition and extensive regional marine erosion in Mid-Miocene and Late Pliocene times. In contrast, the Møre Basin was generally tectonically quiet throughout the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, experiencing mainly continuous subsidence.