The life of a marginal basin depicted in a structural map of the South China Sea

The South China Sea (SCS) is presented here as a case example to demonstrate the evolution of basins developed at convergent boundaries. The structural map published in 2017 by CGMW at the 1:3 million scale allows to visualize the location of the rifting faults from a normal to hyper-extended crust, the shape and structure of the oceanic crust and their late involvement in a convergent margin. It highlights the reactivation of the Mesozoic tectono-stratigraphic setting such as broad folds and granitic plutons during the rifting, and the effect of the resulting architecture on the NW Borneo accretionary wedge.