The Mesozoic outcrops of southwestern Spain show a complex succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Their deposition is related to the first episodes of rifting between Africa and Iberia that took place from the Late Triassic to the Early Jurassic. Subsequent tectonic events generated brittle post-lithification structures, mainly normal faults and joints. The use of inverse methods of fault analysis to evaluate the stress and strain tensors that originated these structures, reveals a first episode of N-S extension, closely followed by an E-W extension. This tectonic evolution, tentatively dated as Early Cretaceous, can be explained in the context of the eastwards movement of the African plate with respect to Iberia along a transtensional, sinistral shear band