Geohistory analysis of Neogene Humboldt basin strata provides important constraints for hypotheses of the tectonic evolution of the southern Cascadia subduction margin, leading up to the arrival of the Mendocino triple junction. This analysis suggests that the tectonic evolution of the Humboldt basin area was dominated by coupling between the downgoing Juan de Fuca plate and the continental margin. This coupling is reflected in the timing of major hiatuses within the basin sedimentary sequence and margin uplift and subsidence which occur during periods of tectonic plate adjustment. Stratigraphic evidence indicates that Humboldt basin originated at the base of the continental slope in early Miocene time. Syndepositional uplift of basin strata began in the late Pliocene and was both thermal isostatic and tectonic in origin. Isostatic uplift was a function of an increasingly more buoyant slab being subducted, whereas tectonic uplift was due to imbricated thrusting of the accretionary complex and underplating of offscraped sediment during subduction. A component of margin uplift is postulated to have been caused by a change in the rate of convergence between the Juan de Fuca and North American plates. Coeval with late Pliocene uplift documented onshore was a sharp decrease in covergence rate ∼3 Ma. A reduction in rate of tectonic uplift, observed in the Eel River section, in early Pleistocene time was coeval with a marked increase in relative motion parallel to the continental margin. This localized subsidence may have been caused by syndepositional folding.