In 1987, after successfully obtaining the first batch of National Natural Science Foundation Youth Science Fund (hereinafter referred to as Youth Fund) projects, Professor Liu Chiyang from Northwestern University, who was still a young teacher at the time, began his research journey, exploring mountains and exploring micro areas, conducting in-depth research in basin structure and oil and gas exploration, and innovatively proposing the ancient and modern Qaidam Basin and its evolution and oil and gas accumulation laws, Pioneering the research on original basin restoration, it has pointed out the direction for oil and gas exploration in the study area and similar basins.