Tectonic and topographic evolution of Western Europe during the Cenozoic convergence between the African and the European cratons. Lithospheric cross-sections at key time intervals depict the relationships between the thin European lithosphere inherited from the Late Variscan-Permian event, the architecture of variably thinned rift domains acquired during the Mesozoic and magmatism. The thick grey line depicts the evolution of the topography. Together with the arrows that symbolized rock uplift it is possible to qualitatively appreciate how the topography is changing in time and space. Yellow wedges corresponds to foreland basins or syn-contraction progressive unconformities.