In the course of Earth's dynamic evolution, the drifting of continents mostly initiates along oblique rifts.
Whereas oblique extension is expected to result in a combination of (i) dip-slip along faults with strike orthogonal to the extension direction and (ii) strike-slip displacement along oblique faults, Philippon and colleagues show that in oblique rifts, faults show dip-slip kinematics indicating pure extension irrespective of the fault strike with respect to the regional extension direction.
These findings question the use of paleo-stress reconstructions to constrain plate kinematics in oblique extensional tectonic settings.
Citation: Slip re-orientation in oblique rifts, M. Philippon et al., Geology; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G36208.1.