The Northeast China is not a Hercynian folded metamorphic belt(or orogenic belt)

but a compound terrain pieced together after the Early Carboniferous.We name it "Jiamusi-Xingmeng Terrain".The Upper Paleozoic is not the crystalline basement for Meso-Cenozoic basins in Northeast China

but marine and continental sedimentary cover of para-caprock nature.The Late-Paleozoic marine sequences have well-developed dark mudstones and carbonates

which is the evidence for hydrocarbon potential.These sequences are important new targets for exploring oil and gas in Northeast China.We propose that the Meso-Cenozoic basins in Northeast China could be divided into three basin groups-the west

the middle and the east separated by the Jiayin-Mudanjiang fault and the Nenjiang-Kailu fault.The genetic type

characteristics of petroleum geology and the temporal and spatial evolution pattern of each basin are also discussed in this paper.