The study of deepwater allogene deposits has been developed for thirty yearsin China. It has experienced periods of the probing of turbidity current deposits in 1970's, the development of gravity deposits in 1980's, and research on deepwater tractive current deposits in 1990's. The research on turbidity current deposits in China began in 1970's. During this period, the focus was put on dataaccumulation and theoretical understanding, and there was little research on deepwater tractive current deposits. In 1980's, the research on deepwater gravity current sediments developed from description of simple types to recognition of a variety of types, and from the general description to the discussion of sedimentation models, controlling factors and orebearing potential.There is a distinction between terrigenous clastic, carbonate and volcanoclastic gravity current deposits, and also between marine and lacustrine deposits. The situation advanced with giant strides and achieved a great success during this period, and research on deepwater tractive current deposits had made an essential progress. In 1990's, the research on gravity deposits has developed steadily and a great progress and some wellknown achievements have been made. Looking to the future, the research on deepwater allogene deposits is still problematic, but we believe that a flourishing situation in the field of gravity current deposits will come to Chinese sedimentologists in the near future.

The sedimentation and erosion in the study area mostly have negative effects on hydrocarbon generation and accumulation. Firstly, in the process of sedimentation, deep lake facies did not occur. The playa and shallow lake deposits in the Kongdian and Shahejie formations provide the main source rocks, however, their low organic abundances make them poor source rocks. Secondly, coarse alluvial deposits in the marginal area of the depression are far away from source rocks and lack links with source rocks, so usually can not act as good reservoir rocks. Furthermore, the intensive uplift and erosion (up to 3000 m in thickness) at the end of the Palaeogene had severe negative effects on hydrocarbon accumulation. On one hand, it caused decline of temperature and pressure, and resulted in slowdown of hydrocarbon generation and expulsion from source rocks; on the other hand, it destroyed the earlly formed oilgas pools. The strong tectonic activities also resulted in difference in burial history. Three types of burial history have been identified, i.e. continuous subsiding type, early subsiding type and twice subsiding type. In the continuous subsiding region, the potential for hydrocarbon generation and expulsion is limited due to shallow burial depth, and only part of the third member of the Shahejie Formation (Es3) fall into oil window. In the early subsiding region, both the Kongdian Formation (Ek) and the Shahejie Formation fall into oil window, but preservation of the expulsed oil and gas is a problem. The regions underwent twice subsiding in burial history are the most prospective targets since source beds could maturate in each subsiding process.

The Permian is an important marine origin oil and gas bearing stratum. Two big transgressiveregressive sedimentary cycles have been recognized, which are responsible for a sedimentary palaeogeographic framework of coexisting marine facies, land facies and transitional facies, with marine carbonate rocks being dominant during the Permian. Based on lithofacies palaeogeography study and typical profiles analysis, four depositional systems, i.e. land depositional system, mixed depositional system, carbonate platform depositional system and slopebasin depositional system are recognized. Spatial relationships of different depositional systems are summarized, and four basic  depositional system associations are generalized. It is pointed out that the sealevel changes and tectonic movements are the key factors controlling the changes and spatial distribution of depositional systems. Finally, Permian oil and gas forming conditions —— generating, reservoiring, capping and their associations are analyzed. It is suggested that there are many associations of generating, reserroiring, capping in the Permian, among which the associations of carbonate platform system and slopebasin system, and mixed system and slopebasin system are the best ones.

Shaanxi－Gansu－Ningxia area is located at the western part of North China platform and the conjoining part of east and west tectonic area, and is one of the most important oilgasbearing area in China. Influenced by alternative tectonic background, eustatism and sediments supply, the Late Palaeozoic depositional system types are diverse. Through the synthetic study of field outcrops, well core, logging and mapping, depositional system types have been identified, including carbonate platform, barrier islandlagoon and tidal flat, tidal channellagoon and tidal flat, river delta, fan delta river, lake, alluvial fan systems. The distribution and filling evolution of the Late Palaeozoic depositional system were related closely with the tectonic activity of the Xingmeng Trough and the QinlingQilian Trough. Controlled by basement and basin marginal fracture, the aulacogen at the western border revived at the Late Carboniferous and formed estuary filling of tidal channellagoon and tidal flat deposits. At the Early Permian sea water of east and west parts joined together to form an united NorthChina epicontinental sea and the coalbearing deposits were formed in environments of carbonate platform, barrier island and shallow water delta in the study area. During the Middle－early Late Permian the epicontinental sea contracted and evolved into a paralic inland depression in the study area and alluvial fan, river, delta and lake facies were formed. During the late LatePermian the epicontinental sea extincted and this area evolved into an inland depression and formed riverlake fillings, mainly lake facies. The development of sandy reservior were controlled by sedimentary environments and its spatial distribution was controlled by palaeotectonic mechanism.

During the Early Ordovician, a suit of carbonate-evaporites had deposited in the east part of the Ordos, which is now known as the Majiagou Formation and up to approximately 1000 meters in thickness.The rocks of the Majiagou Formation can be classified into 18 types of microfacies according to the mineral composition, microscopic structure and fossils. These microfacies types can be grouped into 6 series genetically, which are open sea-related microfacies series, grain-shoal-related microfacies series, secondary crystalline granular textural microfacies series, reef (mound)-related microfacies series, cryptalgal mat-related microfacies series and restricted-intense evaporation-related microfacies series. The microfacies in each series are similar in genesis and environments of formation, and their shifts are relatively continous.The results of microfacies analysis indicate that: (1) most of the limestones of the Majiagou Formation formed in open sea shelf environments and tidal flat environments, and part of them was related to the development of reefs; (2) the evaporites, such as anhydrites and halite, had formed under the condition of evaporation, because of the saline depression's periodic isolation from the open sea; (3) the dolomites have 2 genetic types: one related to sabkha environments and another related to diagenetic environments during buring.

The Palaeogene system in the Southern west sag of the Dongpu Depression consists of riftlacustrine deposits and developed with fluvial, delta, alluvial, fandelta and lacustrine facies. The lithofacies paleogeographic features of the district are controlled by activity of two boundary faults, especially the Changyuan fault at the western side. A strong movement of the faults results in increasing in basin size and water depth, and developing fandelta, delta and deep-semideep lake facies. A weak movement of the faults results in shallowing and filling of the lake basin, and developing alluvial fan and fluvial facies.

Based on cores， logs and seismic data， four intermediate cycles(sequences) can be recognized in the studied strata with the principle of base\|level， which are called MSC1， MSC2， MSC3， MSC4 in descending order. There are two types of sequences in these cycles: clastic rock sequence and gypsum\|salt rock sequence. Clastic rock sequence is usually the product of base\|level rise hemicycles which are characterized by mudstones interbedded with turbidites and sandy deposits of delta front. Gypsum\|salt rock sequence is the product of base\|level fall hemicycles  which are characterized by thick\|bedded halite，gypsite， gypsum\|salt rock， interbedded with sheetlike turbidites. Three depositional systems are recognized， namely deep lake\|turbidite fan，deep water salt lake and shallow lake\|delta.Evolution and distribution of these depositional systems and facies are interpreted in these cycles. According to the characteristics of reservoirs， source rocks and cap rocks， the favorable reservoir members， facies and exploration zones are predicted.

Pectinoids （s.l）are a group of epifauna with planktotrophic larvae. This larval ecology has determined global distribution of majority of pectinoid bivalves. There are still some endemic genera and subgeneras, which are strongly controlled by latitudes and climates. These endemic pectinoids contribute significantly to the zonation of faunal provinces of Jurassic bivalves in the ProtoAtlantic. Boreal Pectinoids, indicators of higher latitudes, include some generas and subgeneras of Buchiidae, Pectinidae and Oxytomidae families, which extended from eastern Greenland to southern England during the late Middle Jurassic and Late Jurassic. Tethyan taxa, restricted mainly to low latitudes with a higher diversity, consist of some generas and subgeneras of Pectinidae, Spondylidae and Entoliidae families, which were distributed in the area south to France with a low latitude. During the spreading of the Tethys, however, Tethyan elements could be dispersed to England with the northward migration of the northern limit of the Tethyan Realm.

Guangxi is usually regarded as a typical area of the Caledonian Movement in China, where the orogeny at the end of Silurian caused the conglomerates of the Early Devonian Lianhuashan Formation to rest unconformably on the underlying strata. However, the distribution of the Lianhuashan Formation is limited in the DamingshanDayaoshan area in central Guangxi and the marginal area of the Yangtze platform in northeastern Guangxi. Furthermore,these conglomerates don't display any characteristics of the synorogenic molasse deposits but have evidences of littoral deposits which are preserved as the basal part of a new transgression sequence on the erosional surface of an ancient land.In the Late Palaeozoic shallowmarine platform area of the western Guangxi,the Lower Devonian mudstones or siltstones onlap to the Cambrian platform strata. The same situation can be found in the adjacent areas such as southeastern Yunnan and North Vietnam. This means that during the Early Palaeozoic these areas belonged to a same block. The name“GuangxiYunnanNorth Vietnam Block” or “GYNV Block” in brief is suggested here. The convergence and compression between the Yunkai Block and the GYNV Block as well as the Yangtze Block during the Early Ordovician led to the formation of the EW oriented Cambrian linear fold belts in the DamingshanDayaoshan terrane. This was the main phase of the Caledonian Movement in Guangxi. The Late Ordovician—Early Silurian collision belt in Guangxi, between the Cathaysian and Yangtze blocks, can only be seen in its northeastern part, and this belt is presented as  the NS oriented Sinian—Early Silurian linear fold belt. There is no evidence on the orogenic process at the end of the Silurian. Since the Early Devonian, due to plume activity the GYNV Block had disintegrated into the North Vietnam Block, Jingxi Platform and the other smaller blocks.

The six fundamental conditions of the coal reservoir and its caprock assemblages with some regular occurrence in spacetime exist in China. The sealing capability of the shallow sea and barrier island system to coal reservoir is relatively high, that of the shallow sea and plane coast system becomes mostly poor, that of the littoral delta system is commonly good, that of the fluvial system is relatively good if the sedimentary unit is complete or very poor if the coal reservoir is directly overlaid by the channel or splay medium to coarsegrained sandstone, that of the lake system is sufficiently high, and that of the alluvial fan system is generally very poor. The relationship between the sedimentation and coalbedroof condition not only occurs regionally in the North and South China, but also controls the distribution of the coalbed methane content in some given coalfields or coal mining districts, which provide the important reference for the prediction of the gasbearing coalbeds.