Break-up of continental lithosphere and opening of marine basins are one of the fundamental issues in geology,known as passive margin geodynamics.Its significance goes far beyond the academic interest as passive margin basins host nearly two-thirds of the discovered hydrocarbons worldwide.Our knowledge of the geodynamic evolution of passive margin originated largely from the northern Atlantic,resulting from multiple expeditions of international ocean drilling in the 1980s and 1990s.As a standard hypothesis of rifting and rapturing,the Atlantic model of passive margin has been applied widely to paleo-and modern basins from the Alps to Pacific;yet,its universal applicability needs to be tested by drilling in other basins,as recently done in the northern South China Sea (SCS).