The Qinling Mountains separating the northern from the southern China plate is a key region for the study of structural evolution of eastern Asia. It is composed of the Palaeozoic fold belt in its northern part and the Variscan and Indosinian fold belts in its southern part. The evolution of the former is marked by the closure of a northward subducting oceanic basin in the early stage, followed by southward obduction of ophiolites and intracontinental thrusting during the Variscan; whereas that of the latter is represented by intracontinental, shallow crustal deformation on the basis of a large-scale detachment structure(with a horizontal slip of at least of 100 km). Since the late Palaeozoic, however, both of the belts have been cut by a series of east-west sinistral strike-slip faults.