Idealized NS cross-sections of the basement crust deformation in the Agly area during the Cretaceous rifting. (A) Aptian. The basement crust deformed as a pinch and swell structure, leading to an isolated boudin of the Agly Massif bounded by two detachment faults. The Agly Massif was cooling from the start of the rifting. (B) Albo-Cenomanian. In the Cenomanian (95 Ma), the basement crust reached the point of rupture below the Boucheville basin, which caused a late HT-LP metamorphism in the Mesozoic sediments (up to 580 °C at a depth of 7 km). In the Agly basin, the thinning of the basement crust was less extreme, but enough to be responsible for a late temperature overprint (95 Ma) of up to 390 °C in the Mesozoic sediments. NPF: transform fault separating the Iberian microplate from Europe (= future North Pyrenean Fault); LCDF: Latour-Caladroy Detachment Fault (explanations in the text).