The Longmenshan Fault on the latter border was the site of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

[1] The Yangtze plate was formed by the disaggregation of the Rodinia supercontinent 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era.

South China rifted away from the Gondwana supercontinent in the Silurian.

During the formation of the great supercontinent Pangaea, South China was a smaller, separate continent located off the east coast of the supercontinent and drifting northward.

[2] Its southward motion is accommodated along the Red River fault.