Geological and geochronological correlations between Borborema province (NE Brazil) and neighboring cratons and Brasiliano/Pan-African belts indicate that the Amazonian, West African, and S¿o Francisco/Congo cratons and the basement of the Araguaia, Borborema, Nigerian, and Cameroon provinces were part of the Atlantica supercontinent. This continent was established at the end of the Transamazonian/Eburnean cycle (~2.0 Ga) and, apart from ubiquitous taphrogenesis in the 1.8--1.7 Ga interval, remained largely unaffected for the following 1 Ga. Around 1 Ga an important magmatic event in Borborema province correlates with rifting episodes and anorogenic magmatism in the S¿o Francisco, Congo, and Amazonian cratons. These events are interpreted as failed attempts to break up Atlantica, which at this time may have been part of the larger Rodinia supercontinent. Renewed extensional conditions in Borborema province during the middle and late Neoproterozoic are attributed to far-field stresses transmitted to the interior of Atlantica by outwardly dipping subduction zones that encircled its northern (present day coordinates) portion. The rarity of petrotectonic assemblages typical of subduction zone environments indicates that extension did not evolve enough to form large oceans basins and thus that the Borborema province essentially includes reworked intracontinental domains. Regional deformation and metamorphism, starting at 650--640 Ma, and shear zone development, beginning at 590--595 Ma, were continuously developed through time and were synchronous throughout most of the Borborema, Araguaia, Cameroon, and Nigerian provinces. Postorogenic conditions were reached 540--530 Myr ago, while active deformation was still occurring in other belts that accreted around Atlantica to form western Gondwana.