Tectonic-driven passive rifting and mantle plume-driven active rifting are two mechanisms frequently invoked as the cause of continental breakups. Both mechanisms result in thermo-mechanical erosion of the lithosphere, which leads to thinning and rupture of the plate. Rifting in melt-poor and complex tectonic settings (i.e., at the boundary between subduction and rift margins) is poorly constrained. Studying rifting in such settings is essential to understand the role of individual and multiparametric mechanisms in the overall rifting process. For example, the toroidal mantle flows around the edge of a subducting slab, and its influence on the adjacent continental plate is characterized by cascading processes that may lead to incipient continental breakup and new spreading rifts. Such a complex tectonic setting exists across the Sicily Channel Rift Zone (SCRZ). However, marine observations to constrain SCRZ’s mantle flow and its effect on the overlying lithosphere are limited.