Abstract: No breakthrough has been achieved in rift type Jurassic petroleum exploration in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and northeast China, and hence these areas can be regarded as new areas for petroleum exploration. There existed obvious relationship between the unsuccessful exploration and the low level of technology and the limitation of cognition before the reform and opening up. In recent years, a series of new advances achieved on the northern side of Qaidam basin and the southwestern side of the Songliao basin have strengthened researchers' confidence in reevaluating the oil and gas potential and exploiting new formations in these areas. As the development of Jurassic rift in the Jurassic strata has obvious similarity, and the coal measure strata have experienced complex transformation, there exist considerable difficulties in the recovery and delineation of the residual strata and the prototype basin as well as the understanding of the hydrocarbon transport and preservation characteristics. In the further work, much importance should be attached to the study of hydrocarbon generation and volcanic rocks of coal-beariang strata as well as the integrated exploration of different target strata, conventional and unconventional oil and gas and sedimentary uranium deposits in these areas.