Forty apatite samples of sandstone from ten exploration wells in the Scotian Basin, offshore Nova Scotia, Canada, were used for fission track analysis and thermal history reconstruction. The sample depths range from 1000 to 5500 m. Fission tracks in all apatite samples are at least partially annealed. Apatite fission track ages for the shallowest samples, from the Logan Canyon Formation, are older than their stratigraphic ages and therefore retain some record of cooling in the detrital source area. Samples from deeper formations (Missisauga, Mic Mac and Verrill Canyon) have apatite fission track ages younger than their stratigraphic ages (some give zero ages), indicating partial to total annealing of fission tracks in apatite. The degree of annealing in most samples modelled is significantly higher than would be expected given their present-day temperatures. This indicates that these samples experienced a thermal overprint; they have been hotter in the past than at present. Inverse modelling by a Constrained Random Search (CRS) technique was carried out on the six best data sets. The results indicate that strata at depths of 1650-2600 m in the modelled wells were heated to paleotemperatures of about 80-110 degrees C at some time during the interval 100-40 Ma. The magnitude of the thermal overprint predicted (estimated) by the modelling ranges from 1 degrees to 55 degrees C among the five wells modelled. Zircon fission track data from fifteen samples in four wells do not constrain burial temperatures. These data indicate a mixed provenance for the sediments.