1.INTRODUCTIONThe Okinawa Trough is a spreading hemipelagic back-arc basin between theDonghai shelf of China and the Ryukyu lslands.It extends parallel to the islandson its eastern side and convex to southeast(Fig.1).Since the appearance of plate tectonic as a working hypothesis,people becomemore and more interested in the origin and evolution of island arc.The sedimen-tation,volcanism and history of the discussing trough is closely related to theactivities of the nearby island arc so that it is worth studying.Many scientistshave made their contributions for a long time to the investigation of the trough,including geology,oceanology and geophysics.China started late,but some compr-ehensive researches have been carried out during the several years.This paper isa brief report on the latest two cruises made by the units mentioned under thetitle of this paper.