South of the Rio de Janeiro coast, a phenomenal landward-dipping fault system detaches blocks of the Albian platform to the north and, to the south, coincides with the depositional limit of the Albian platform. This deep-water fault system controls features that can be mapped for hundreds of kilometers along strike and forms an Albian stratigraphic gap tens of kilometers wide.

Two end-member processes of salt tectonics in the Cabo Frio region result in either synthetic or antithetic basal shear along the fault weld under the overburden: (1) thin-skinned processes, in which the listric faults were caused by salt flow in response to gravity forces related to massive clastic progradation from the continent; and (2) thick-skinned processes, in which faulting was indirectly triggered by diastrophic causes or disequilibrium in the basement topography. The structural styles in the Cabo Frio region are compared with analogs from other basins and with sandbox models.