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The North China Platform was an extensive epeiric sea, formed on the tectonically stable Sino-Korean Block in the early Paleozoic. The sedimentary succession in the North China Platform comprises thick (ca. 1800 m in thickness) mixed carbonate and siliciclastic sediments. Deposition was initiated in the Cambrian with ensued rise in sea level. The lower part of the succession represents initial marine flooding and stabilization of shallow marine environments. Production of carbonates kept up with the rise in sea level in the overlying Zhangxia Formation (Middle Cambrian), dominated by oolite and various microbialite facies. Bounded by a drowning unconformity, the overlying succession consists mainly of shale (Gushan Formation) and carbonate facies (Chaomidian Formation). Microbialites resurged and flourished as the platform was submerged again during the Furongian. The epeiric platform was eventually formed and maintained through the late Furongian to the Early Ordovician. There are high variabilities of sequence bounding surface.

The Gyeongsang Arc System formed in a convergent margin where the paleo-Pacific Plate subducted under the Asian continent. It comprises a volcanic arc (Gyeongsang Volcanic Arc) and the adjacent backarc basin (Gyeongsang Basin) behind the arc. The arc comprises volcanic and plutonic rocks. The volcanics include andesitic and rhyolitic rocks. The majority of the volcanic rocks occurs in calderas and volcanotectonic depressions. The Gyeongsang Basin was filled with a thick (ca. 9 km thick) succession of siliciclastic rocks and volcanic deposits as well as carbonates and evaporites. A number of depositional systems developed, including alluvial fans in the basin margins, braided rivers and floodplains along the axis of the depression, and swamps and lakes in the lowlands. The basin progressively expanded and received volcanic materials from the arc on the east and south.

In the southwestern Korean Peninsula, a series of strike-slip faults are characterized by normal and en echelon patterns with high-angle transtensional faults. These major faults activated by left-lateral strike-slip movements in the Late Jurassic to the Cretaceous, forming small-scale rhomboidal basins. The elongated basins were filled with alluvial to lacustrine sediments during the Early to Late Cretaceous. The overall basin-fill architecture and the variations in stacking patterns can be understood in terms of the interplay of basin subsidence (tectonics) and sediment supply. The northward subduction of the Izanagi Plate caused the shearing. In the Yellow Sea, however, the Cretaceous basins were largely under transtensional regime, which inherited from the Tan-Lu Fault.