Most of China and Soviet Asia were formed by the welding of micro-continents and accretionary wedge assemblages from Devonian through late Cretaceous time. The first hydrocarbon systems developed in late Precambrian to middle Paleozoic basins on continental platform blocks prior to the Hercynian welding of plates. Later hydrocarbon systems developed in both extensional and compressional successor basins associated with plate collisions from late Paleozoic to Cenozoic time.

Basins with cratonic tectono-stratigraphic assemblages, which formed on Archean - early Paleozoic microcontinent plates, feature hydrocarbon systems that are sourced by marine rocks and reservoired in weathered crusts and (or) clastic/carbonate platform rocks. The upper Precambrian and Paleozoic of east Siberia, the middle Paleozoic of west Siberia, and the lower Paleozoic of the Tarim Basin are examples of this hydrocarbon system.

The rift-sag successor basins, which developed on these welded micro-plates and accretionary wedges after collision, feature hydrocarbon systems produced from mostly non-marine rocks in China and mostly marine rocks in Russia. Example successor basins include the marine Jurassic-Cretaceous West Siberian interior sag basin - formed over several micro-plates; the non-marine, Cretaceous-Tertiary, rift-sag Songliao and North China basins; and the neogene extensional strike-slip North Sakhalin Basin.

The compressional basins formed as a result of late Paleozoic to Cenozoic plate collisions. These basins feature hydrocarbon systems in marine and/or non-marine rocks depending on the paleogeographic setting. The best example is the late Paleozoic-Mesozoic, non-marine Junggar Basin in Northwest China

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