The South China Sea is roughly divided by the Zhongnan Fault into the eastern and western parts, with big differences in the Mesozoic sedimentation and the residual thickness, the nature and the characteristics of the continent-oceanic boundary, the age of the continental breakup, the width of the thinned continental lithosphere, the age and the magnetic layer structure of the oceanic crust, the magnetic anomaly, the lithochemistry, and the magmatic activity. They are mainly controlled by the east-west difference in the pre-rift tectonic background, the lithospheric extension rates, and the tectonic settings related with seafloor spreading. These factors profoundly affect the subsequent regional sedimentary zonation and thermal subsidence.

South China Sea  /  extension rate  /  seafloor spreading  /  continental breakup  /  continent-ocean boundary