Abstract: The onshore marine hydrocarbon-bearing basins of China are mainly distributed in Tethyan tectonic domain. From Ptoterozoic to Mesozoic, marine basins like Tarim, Ordos and Sichuan with cratonic basement are of enormous potentials in resources. They are major areas for petroleum exploration and development in China. Two structural strata of the marine basins are developed in Caledonian movement and Hercynian-early Indo-China movement for China's old land sedimentary and tectonic evolutions. The evolution of marine basins in early Paleozoic occurred as hydrocarbon source rocks with transgressive sequence and regressive sequence; during late Paleozoic-early Indo-China movement, the transgressive sequence was dominated by reservoir rocks, deposited secondarily by hydrocarbon source rocks; while the deposits of the regressive sequence developed both hydrocarbon source rocks and reservoir rocks. It is shown from exploration and development of these basins that they have three generalities in hydrocarbon generation,accumulation and forming reservoirs, i. e, the prototype basinal evolution is similar to the depositional sequences with five sets of hydrocarbon source rocks (Z₂、€₁、O₁、O_2-3、S₁); in Caledonian movement formed failed foreland basins, deep basins and multistage exposed and corrosive surfaces occurred with palaeo-uplifts and structural tilting; the carbonate rocks with paleo-karst and overlapping Upper Paleozoic shaped reservoir system. The paleogeographic migration and the time deference of structural evolution resulted in the diversity between northern and southern basins.

Key words: marine basin, source rock, Tethyan tectonic domain, depositional-structural evolution, petroleum reservoir formation, generality, particularity