Located in the northern Qinghai-Tibet plateau, Qaidam Basin is surrounded by the East Kunlun Mountains in the south, Qilian Mountains in the north, and Altun Mountains in the west. With an area of 121,000 square kilometers (km~2), Qaidam Basin is about 850 kilometers (km) long from east to west and 150～300km wide from south to north. Three sets of sedimentary formations had developed in the basin, including Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic strata. The Mesozoic-Cenozoic sedimentary rock of the basin covers an area of 96630 km~2, with its maximum thickness achieving 17200m and volume being about 600,000km~3. 2019 various exploratory wells (2.7386 million meters of drilling footage in total) have been completed so far, 62291 kilometers of 2-D and 2754 km~2 of 3-D seismic exploration as well as geophysical and geochemical exploration such as gravity, electricity method, microgravity, magnetotelluric method (MT), and continuous electromagnetic profiling (CEMP) have been carried out since the surface geologic survey, drilling, and seismic exploration were initiated in 1954, 1955, and 1956 respectively.
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