The East Brazilian Rift system (Ebris) constitutes the northern segment of the South Atlantic rift system which developed during the Mesozoic breakup of South America and Africa. Following crustal separation in the Late Aptian, it evolved into a passive continental margin. Along the continental margin six basins are recognized, while three onshore basins form part of an aborted rift. Three continental syn-rift stratigraphic sequences are recognized, spanning Jurassic to Barremian times. The Jurassic (Syn-rift I) and Neocomian (Syn-rift II) phases were most active in the interior rift basins. During the Barremian (Syn-rift III), rift subsidence rates were twice as large as during the Neocomian (Syn-rift II), both in the interior rift and in the marginal rift segments, indicating that rift axis did not migrate from the interior to the marginal setting. Rift magmatism was centered on the southern ebris and peaked between 130 and 120 Ma during syn-rift phase II. Rift phase III was followed by a transitional marine, evaporitic megasequence of Aptian age, which directly overlies the rift unconformity and a marine drift megasequence which spans Albian to Recent times. During the Late Cretaceous, sedimentation rates responded to first-order eustatic sea-level fluctuations. Tertiary accelerated sedimentation rates can be related to local clastic supply which filled in spaces inherited from previous starved conditions. Between 60 and 40 Ma, post-rift magmatism, centered on the Abrolhos and Royal Charlotte banks, is probably related to development of a hot spot associated with the Vitória-Trindade Seamount Chain. Although crossing three distinct Precambrian tectono-thermal provinces, ranging from Archean through Late Proterozoic, rift structures follow a general NE trend, subparallel to the principal basement fabric. A NW-SE oriented stress field appears to be compatible with both Neocomian and Barremian phases of crustal extension. Profiles transverse to the rift axis indicate crustal stretching factors ranging between β = 2.16 and 2.88. In the shallow portions of the rift, surface extension and crustal thinning seem to be compatible; however, in the deep portions of the basins, this relationship could not be tested. Reinterpretation of refraction profiles, north and south of the Walvis-São Paulo Ridge transform, indicates that seafloor spreading, from M3 anomaly to Aptian off Pelotas Basin, was taken up by crustal extension in the São Paulo Plateau. Differences in stretching rates may have been accommodated by extension across the Ponta Grossa Arch. The Early Aptian syn-rift/post-rift transition in the ebris marginal basins does not coincide with the onset of the drift phase during the Early Albian. This apparent discrepancy may be explained by a change from distributed margin-wide extension to a focused mode of extension near the future continent/ocean boundary.