Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palaeotectono-stress Field of Ordos Basin

The Ordos basin, as a Jurassic-Cretaceous nonmarine one, is situated in the west part ofthe North China craton. In past decade, the hypothesis of forming and evolutionary mechanism for the basin was proposed by some Chinese petroleum geologists, but the evidence finished by dynamics of the earth yet remains to be found up in the future. For this reason, areconstruction of the palaeotectonic stress field of the Ordos basin in Mesozoic and Cenozoic,mainly based on the tectonic analyses of conjugate joint system and others, is made in this paper. The result shows that an average occurrence of the maxium principle compressive stressaxis is 179￣350°∠2￣3°in the indosinian, 130￣310°∠2￣3°in the Yanshanian, and 30￣210°∠1￣2°in the Himalayan movements respectively. It is postulated that the driving forcebehind those fields is derived from the collision and/or downgoing events of the Tethys andPacific tectonic realms along the margin of Asian continent.