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During the Precambrian and the Palaeozoic, the tectonics of NW Europe were dominated by the sequential accretion of different terrains on to the North American Craton, e.g. old continental crust of the Scandinavian Craton, magmatic arcs of the Avalon-Brabant Massif, Pentevrian continental crust and the Brioverian magmatic arc. Terrains were locally bounded by thrust packages, by NW-SE trending strike-slip — transform faults parallel to the accretion direction, and by NE-SW trending strike-slip faults defining localized oblique collision or, more generally, boundaries to zones of lateral continental extrusion and escape. Close analogies can be made with the Tertiary Makran-Himalaya-Tibet collisional zones. The Laxfordian/Caledonian/Variscan thrusts and more importantly the large-scale strike-slip faults, imposed a complex heterogeneity to the crust which critically influenced the subsequent extension directions and the siting of basin bounding faults and tectonic inversion, from Devonian times to the present day.