Collisional mountain belts are the product of deformation of former continental margins. During the past 20 years it has be- come increasingly evident that the pre-existing faults, basin structures and the stratigraphic variations they generate can play a significant role in influencing the structural evolution of later compressional tectonics. This Special Issue contains a collection of papers that explore how this type of geological inheritance is manifest in the structural evolution of continental crust, especially associated with orogenesis. It arises from the one-day symposium (G23.03) on ‘‘Tectonic inversion pro- cesses and structural inheritance in mountain belts’’ held at the 32nd International Geological Congress in Florence, Au- gust 2004, that attracted some 31 oral and poster presentations. In summary, the collection of papers in this Special Issue offer a range of new structural interpretations, some applied to well-known tectonic settings, some to novel regions. Thus, although many of the concepts of inversion tectonics are well-established, these papers should promote further tests and applications of these ideas in particular and in the applica- tion of structural geology to illuminate models of continental deformation in general.