DSDP data at five sites on the outer margin and multichannel seismic data. The margin can be divided into three physiographic provinces: two broad shelf and slope regions separated by the Jan Mayen fracture zone, and the steep, narrow shelf and slope off the Lofoten Islands. Each experienced a separate Cenozoic subsidence history. The Voering Plateau is partly underlain by oceanic crust; it subsided nearly 1,000 m less than expected from thermal contraction, but it did so following the development of a relatively deep-water environment in the Paleocene. North of the Voering Plateau, the margin may have subsided a few hundred meters more than thermal studies had predicted. There is no evidence for a phase of extensional deformation associated with the inception of spreading. The youngest faulted level occurs at the Late Jurassic level, preceding sea-floor spreading by nearly 100 Ma, and deformation in the Cretaceous section is characterized by large uplift structures that may be of halokinetic origin.--Modified journal abstract.