ABSTRACTThe Umbria‐Marche‐Sabina foreland fold and thrust belt (Northern Apennines, Italy) provides excellent test‐cases for the hypothesis of ancient syndepositional structural features controlling thrust ramp development. The sedimentary cover, Late Triassic to Miocene in age, is made of platform and pelagic carbonates, whose deposition was controlled by significant synsedimentary extension. Normal faulting, mainly during the Jurassic and the Late Cretaceous‐Palaeogene, determined sensible lateral thickness variations within the relative sequences. By late Miocene the sedimentary cover was detached from its basement along a mainly evaporitic horizon, and was deformed by means of eastward‐verging folds and thrusts.In order to locate the points where thrust ramps branch‐off the basal detachment, both line‐length and equal‐area techniques were used in the construction of a balanced cross‐section through three major fault‐related folds in southeastern Umbria. The nucleation of thrust ramps was controlled by the occurrence of Jurassic and Cretaceous‐Palaeogene synsedimentary normal faults. These interrupted the lateral continuity of the evaporitic unit (the Late Triassic Anidriti di Burano Fm.) at the base of the sedimentary cover, and acted as obstacles to the eastward propagation of the thrust system, giving rise to major folds which originated from tip‐line folding processes.Therefore, the inferred relationships between ancient normal faults and late thrusts indicate that synsedimentary tectonic structures and the related lateral stratigraphic variations can be envisaged as mechanically important perturbations, which effectively control the nucleation and deve