Abstract: Dunhua Basin is located in the middle of Dunhua Mishan Graben. And it is a rift-fault depression superposed basin which is controlled by the Dunhua Mishan fracture zone. A series of tectonic system transitions happens
during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic period in the Dunhua Mishan fracture zone. The transitions starts in the Late Triassic. In the Late Jurassic, it is compressional; during the Cretaceous–Paleogene, it has a left-lateral displacementand a certain scale of extension; there is a compression in the lat e Paleogene, which then turns into the extensionstate again after Neogene. The evolution of Dunhua Mishan fracture zone plays a controlling role in the gener ation,development and evolution of the Dunhua basin. The evolution of the Dunhua Basin in the Mesozoic–Cenozoic period is: the compressional orogeny, strike slip & pull-apart and the initial rifting stage in Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (rift development stage); the inversion, uplifting and exhumation stage in Late Cretaceous-Paleocene;rift basin development stages in the Eocene–Oligocene period and Depression and basalt eruption stage after the Neogene. Different evolution stages have different deposition response characteristics.

Key words: Dunhua Mishan fracture zone, tectonic evolution, Dunhua Basin, sediment filling