Late Triassic-Liassic paleoclimatology of the photo-central North Atlantic rift system

The photo-central North Atlantic rift system was a complex of grabens and half-grabens trending southwest-northeast. Sedimentological and paleontological evidence suggests increasing aridity toward the northern end of the rift system and increasing aridity from the late Triassic into the Liassic. The entire rift system drifted slowly northward during the Triassic and Liassic; its northern end had reached about 20°N at the end of the Triassic. Salt deposits in the eastern and central part of the rift synchronous with coal swamps, fresh-water lakes and zeolitic playas in basins on the western margin of the rift system suggest that the local climatology was controlled by adiabatic processes associated with the lower eastern and higher western border mountains.