Many passive continental margins around the world are characterized by an elevated plateau, often separated from an adjacent coastal plain by a pronounced escarpment; e.g. on both sides of the Atlantic, south-east Africa, western India and in eastern Australia. In many areas, e.g. Scandinavia, the timing and extent of uplift movements are difficult to determine because the uplifted area consists almost exclusively of ancient metamorphic rocks. However, during recent years evidence has been accumulating that a major component of the relief is of Neogene age. Some offshore sedimentary basins on the passive margins have been exhumed during the Neogene uplift (e.g. around the northern North Atlantic) and petroleum systems can be radically affected by this process. This symposium investigates the uplift history of the passive margins around the world and the mechanism behind these enigmatic movements – the presentations will included studies based on geological, geomorphological as well as geophysical observations. Is the mechanism behind the uplift movements a patchwork of different effects, or is there a major underlying lithospheric paradigm behind passive margin uplift?