The group focuses on continental margin dynamics and basin analysis in East China and western Pacific continental margin. Its Academic philosophy and goals is mainly to investigate key scientific issues around continental dynamics and marine geodynamics in East China.

The recent scientific goals focus on Continental Dynamics including formation and lithosphere thinning of the North China Craton, and formation of the Bohai Bay Basin, geodynamics of the wide Mesozoic South China tectonic belt, lithospheric dynamics and rheology of the Tibet Plateau. The research also covers a series of geological effects in mainland China resulting from a collision between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate, such as geodynamics related to the extrusion of the South China Block, extension of the Bohai Bay Basin and opening of the South China Sea. The group also devotes to understand the development of various types of basins in east China, such as the intraplate Bohai Bay Basin, the Yellow Sea Basin, the East China Sea Continental Shelf Basin, Okinawa Trough and the South China Sea Basin. Most of them are oil- and gas-bearing basins. The group also contributed to the exploration of various energy-related issues in the basins combing Structural Geology with Basin Analysis.

Long-term goal in the future 10 years, based on the present-day international trend, is to pioneer Marine Geodynamics. The studying areas favor traditionally the western Pacific Continental Margin, extending to the deep ocean. The group focuses on the processes, multi-spheric coupling and dynamics of subduction system and mid-oceanic ridges, respectively as well as geological disasters including earthquakes, tsunami, landslides and other kinetic exploration from the deep-sea to shallow-sea continental margins.

In recent years, the group took three national special projects of Science and Technology, one national climbing program, two national 863 projects, four National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, one CSC Scholarship and a number of projects from energy companies. The group has published more than 160 papers in "Earth Science Review", "Geology", "Journal of geophysical Research", "Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta", "Earth and Planetary Science Letters", "Journal of Metamorphic Geology", "Journal of Structural Geology", "Tectonophysics", "Acta Geologica Sinica", "Acta Petrologica Sinica", "Journal of Asian Earth Sciences", "International Geology Review", "Gondwana Research" and others. Publication also includes two textbooks and seven monographs. The research group has pursued several provincial and ministerial awards. One researcher was named New Century Excellent Talent, the Ministry of Education, in 2006.