A significant geologic event occurred on the Oligocene/Miocene boundary at 23.8 Ma in the northern South China Sea, which is named the Baiyun (白云) movement in this article. This event strongly affected not only the South China Sea, but also East Asia. After the Baiyun event, the ridge of seafloor spreading of the South China Sea jumped southward and rotated counterclockwise, and a strong subsidence occurred in the Baiyun sag of the Pearl River Mouth basin. The shelf break shifted suddenly from the south to the north of the Baiyun sag, and the deposition environment in this sag changed from continental shelf with neritic deposition to continental slope with deep-water deposition. Sediment geochemistry study indicated that the Baiyun event played a key role in the rapid change of sediment provenance for the Pearl River Mouth basin. Between 32 and 23.8 Ma, the source of sediments was mainly from the granites in South China, while after 23.8 Ma some sediments might have come from the eastern Himalaya, as the Pearl River drainage extended westward after the uplift of Tibet since that time. The Baiyun event led to a great change in the drainage framework of the paleoPearl River, sediment types and the depositional environments in the Pearl River Mouth basin, and relative sea level of the northern South China Sea, as well as sedimentation and hydrocarbon accumulation in the area.

The newly acquired long-cable multi-channel seismic (MCS) lines were used to study the crustal structure and extension in an NW-SE elongated 150 km by 260 km strip from the slope to the deepsea basin in the northern South China Sea (SCS). These profiles are of good penetration that Moho is recognizable in ~70% length of the lines. Seismostratigraphic interpretation and time-depth conversion were conducted. A power function D = at b + c was used in the time-depth conversion, which avoided the under-or over-estimation of the depths of deep-seated interfaces by cubic or quadratic polynomial functions. Contour maps of basement depth, Moho depth, crustal thickness, and crustal stretching factor were obtained for the study area. In the dip direction, the Moho depth decreases stepwisely from 28 km in the outer shelf southwards to 19, 15, and 12 km in the deepsea basin, with ramps at the shelf break, lower slope, and the continent ocean boundary (COB), respectively. Accordingly, the crustal thickness decreased southwards from 25 to 15, 13, and 7 km, respectively. Under the center of the Baiyun (白云) sag, the crust thins significantly to < 7 km. The crustal stretching factor β c was calculated by assuming the original crust thickness of 30 km. In the centers of the Baiyun sag, β c exceeds 5. Tertiary and Quaternary volcanic activities show a general trend of intensifying towards the COB. An important finding of this study is the along-strike variation of the crustal structure. A Moho rise extends from the COB NW-ward until the shelf break, about 170 km long and 50-100 km wide, with Moho depth < 20 km. This is called the Baiyun Moho Nose, which is bounded to the east, west, and north by belts of high Moho gradients indicative of crustal or even lithospheric faults. The doming of Moho in the nose area might be the cause of the W-E segmentation of the crustal and geological structures along the slope of the northern South China Sea, and the cause of the strong crustal stretching in the Baiyun and Liwan (荔湾) sags.

To investigate the thinning of the whole crust, and the contribution of the upper versus lower crust to the stretching since Cenozoic, we calculated the stretching factor of the northern margin of South China Sea with data such as whole crustal thickness, depth of Cenozoic sedimentary basement and the horizontal displacement of faults. An isometric line drawing on whole crustal stretching factor is then obtained. Along the seismic Line 1530 in Baiyun sag, we also calculated the stretching factors of the upper and lower crust. The results suggest that the whole crustal thickness decreases seaward while the whole crustal stretching factor increases from shelf to slope. The Moho upwells highest beneath where the crust is thinned most. The value of the whole crustal stretching factor ranges from 1.5 to 6. Two areas were thinned intensely: the center of Yinggehai Basin, and the Baiyun sag in the Pearl River Mouth Basin. The calculation of the upper and lower crustal stretching factors from DSP1530 in Baiyun sag shows that the original crust of Baiyun sag should be thinned before deformation. Its pre-Cenozoic evolution as well as tectonic position during Cenozoic might be responsible for that.

The Baiyun (白云) sag in the southern Pearl River Mouth basin is the largest and deepest sag in deepwater northern South China Sea. Researches and exploration in this sag have revealed many distinct features of the sag. This article reports its filling history through backstripping of depth data of interpreted sequence boundaries. Maps of sediment rates of 10 sequences from 49 Ma to the present were constructed, showing the spatio-temporal variation of the sediment rate. Three stages of sediment infilling, 49-17.5 Ma, 17.5-10.5 Ma, and 10.5-0 Ma, were divided by abrupt changes of sedimentary patterns. If the breakup of the South China Sea took place at ~30 Ma, significant post-breakup acceleration of sedimentation was observed at 17.5-15.5 Ma and 13.8-12.5 Ma, indicating acceleration of subsidence at these times. We propose that the onset of strong post-breakup subsidence at ~17.5 Ma was an important tectonic event that changed the pattern of sedimentation from discrete and medium-rate deposition centers in both main and south subsags to restricted but high-rate deposition in the main subsag. The cause and implications of this newly recognized event need to be investigated.

Recent exploration revealed the high potential for hydrocarbon in the deepwater sags, Pearl River Mouth Basin, northern South China Sea. This paper reports its Cenozoic sedimentary evolution through backstripping of high precision depth data of interpreted sequence boundaries. Local backstripping parameters were mapped based on well and geophysical data. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the reliability of decompaction results were largely improved by using the local porosity parameters and the lithological parameters that vary with grid nodes. Maps of sedimentation rates of 17 sequences from 65 Ma to the present were constructed, showing the spatial-temporal variation of the sedimentation rate. Three rapid depositional stages, 65-32, 29-23.3, 18.5-10.5 Ma, and three slow depositional stages, 32-29, 23.3-18.5, 10.5-0 Ma, were identified with abrupt changes of sedimentary patterns. The three rapid depositional stages were in accord with syn-rifting stage, the first post-rifting depositional stage, and the second post-rifting depositional stage, respectively. And the three slow depositional stages were in keeping with three tectonic events respectively. Several significant sedimentary discontinuities at 32, 23.3 and 10.5 Ma were observed and discussed. The comparison between the study area and the ODP Site 1148 at 32-23.3 Ma indicates that before *29 Ma the ODP Site 1148 was at similar sedimentation regime as that in the Baiyun and Liwan sags, but significant diversity appeared after *29 Ma, when a large quantity of terrigenous sediments was trapped by strong post-rifting subsidence in the Baiyun and Liwan sags and could not reach the lower slope areas. Study revealed that the most rapid accumulation from 18.5 to 17.5 Ma might be mainly owing to the large sediment supply during this strong monsoon period.