With a great development in the last century, provenance analysis becomes an important approach in basin research and paleogeography reconstruction. Over past decades, the development of in situ microanalytical techniques, such as electron microprobe, ion microprobe and LAICPMS, allow more easily and accurately the geochemical and geochronological study of single mineral. This greatly boosted the development of provenance analysis approaches. This paper reviewed recently applications of geochemistry and geochronology of accessory minerals in sandstones to provenance analysis. Chemical composition of chromian spinel and rutile and isotopic dating of detrital zircon and muscovite are good provenance indicators. It is effective to discriminate sedimentary source by comparing data of detrital minerals with possible source regions, because it can distinguish various sedimentary sources which coexist at the deposition time and also could avoid influence from weathering. In addition, since applications of detrital mineral to provenance analysis are mainly based on the statistic occurrences of different components in one sample, more grains will be useful for provenance analysis of detrital minerals.