Through much effort and cooperation by scientists from both sides of the Taiwan Straits, a major cooperative research program "Deep components of the Qilian Caledonian orogen and dynamics" stating from August 2001 to December 2003 has concluded with a great success.

Evaluated and approved by NSFC, the program was led by CAS Member Xu Zhiqin from the Institute of Geography, CAS, with her cooperative counterpart from Cheng Kung University of Taiwan Province.

Scientists have made sound progress which is recognized by the international academeic circle. Main achievements from this project are documented as below. 

1. A UHP belt which extends 350km have been discovered on the north margin of Qaidm basin. It was affirmed that some eclogites in this UHP belt bear UHP metamorphism. And the coesite in the gneiss which was the wall rock of the eclogite in Dulan has been found, showing the existence of the deep crust subduction in this area.
2. Through the study of the chronology of U-Pb SHRIMP, Sm-Nd, Ar-Ar and so on, a conclusion was made that the eclogite was formed 490-500 Ma ago, and the cooling rate of the eclogite in different regions has been attained.
3. Through the study of element geochemistry and isotope geochemistry, scientists put forward that the eclogite originates from the "E"-type or "T" type ocean basalt, and the wall rock of the eclogite from sediment rock and granite, which can contrast with the metamorphic base of the Qilian block.
4. By the contrast with the eclogite of Altun which is border upon Qilian, scientists got a conclusion that the eclogites of both Qilan and Altun were the production of the early Paleozoic subduction and the collision between continents, and then they were divided by the Altun fault. Therefore, it is another HP-UHP belt after Dabie-Sulu HP-UHP which had been divided by the great fault.

The early Paleozoic UHP metamorphic belt which extends 350 km in the south of Qilian is the greatest scale UHP metamorphic belt in the west of China. The coesite was first found in this belt, which has great scientific significance. Contrast with Altun UHP metamorphic belt, it was found that the Altun fault has been moved 400 km. This finding has important signification to study the early Paleozoic tectonic system in western China and the collision between the two plates in China. Research on the early Paleozoic materials of Qilian provides lots of information to study the Qilian orogenic zone. The unified understanding of Qilian orogenic zone and the proposal of the model about the early Paleozoic orogeny not only deepen the research on Qilian, but also help to learn the tectonic evolvement in North Tibet. Scientists from both sides collaborated well. They jointly published discourse assemblage, held workshops, did field survey and shared resources and information. Scientists from Taiwan said that it is the most fruitful cooperation.

Up to now, 31 articles have been published in domestic and international journals, such as Lithos, Terra Nova, Chinese Science, Chinese Science Bulletin, Acta Geologica Sinica, Acta Petrologica Sinica, Geochemistry, Acta earth Sinica and Acta Petrologica ET Mineralogica, and 7 of them are included in SCI. During this three-year cooperation, Xu zhiqin and her colleagues trained 3 doctors and 2 masters, and held a bilateral seminar.