###### Abstract  
The Helanshan Mountain tectonic belt (HTB) is an intraplate deformation belt along the northwestern border of the Ordos Block in the North China Craton. When and why this intracontinetal tectonic belt formed, its subsequent uplift and erosion, and the relationships between ranges and adjacent basins remain unclear. To better assess the connections between the temporal and structural activity in HTB, apatite fission-track (AFT) and zircon fission-track (ZFT) analyses were conducted in this study. The lack of adequate FT data from the HTB is a source of contention and dispute. This paper collected samples for AFT and ZFT techniques from the central and southern HTB, trying to improve the research. The ZFT and AFT ages could be divided into the following 7 groups: 279 Ma, 222-213 Ma, 193-169 Ma, 151-147 Ma, 130-109 Ma, 92-77 Ma, and 65-50 Ma. The inverse modeling results of AFT indicate 4 fast cooling episodes of 170-120 Ma, 120-95 Ma, 66-60 Ma, and \(\sim\)10-8 Ma to the present. Combining the results of FT analysis with radial plot and inverse modeling of AFT, the following eight age groups are believed to reveal the distinct tectonic activities in HTB: the first age group of 279 Ma mainly represented the back-arc extension of the southern HTB; the age group of 222-213 Ma was bounded with NNE-SSE trending contraction between the South China block and North China Craton; the event of 193-169 Ma responded to the post-orogenic collapse followed after the second event; the 151-147 Ma group was interpreted as the eastward extrusion induced by the subduction between Qiangtang and Lhasa blocks; the Early Cretaceous (130-109 Ma) group was not only affected by the rollback of the Pacific Plate, but also denoted the collapse of the thickened lithosphere formed in the Late Jurassic; the Late Cretaceous (92-77 Ma) group was attributed to long-distance impact from the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate; the event during 65-50 Ma was a correspondence to far-field effect of the onset collision between the Eurasian and Indian Plates; and from 10-8 Ma to the present, the progressive collision of the Indian and Eurasian Plates have a significant impact on the HTB and the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. thermal evolution; tectonic events; rapid uplift; apatite fission-track; zircon fission-track; Helanshan tectonic belt 20241435599. 14. The HTB occurred along the western margin of the Ordos Block, and their geological processes were interconnected according to basin-range theory. Prior research suggests that the HTB and Ordos Block experienced the subsequent phases: (1) the N-S to NNE-SSW trending extension in the Early Jurassic [8; 15], which was induced by the post-collapse after the Triassic collision between the North China Craton with the South China Block [16]; (2) the multi-directional compression in the Late Jurassic (mainly in the E-W direction [1; 6; 17]), which was effected by the subduction of the Pacific Plate in the east, the growth of the Qiangtang-Lhasa Block in the southwest and Siberian Block in the north; (3) a WNW-trending extension in the Early Cretaceous [3; 8; 15], correlated to the roll-back of subduction of the east Pacific Plate; (4) the NW-SE trending compression in the Late Cretaceous [4; 8], transmitted from the growing subduction boundary of the Pacific Plate; and (5) the NE-trending compression in the Late Miocene [3; 18; 19], resulting from the uplift and NE-directed growth of the TP. Some important AFT data were used by [PERSON] et al. (2007) [20] and [PERSON] et al. (2010) [5]. However, their samples were limited to the northern and central HTB (Figure 2) and the ZFT data were insufficient. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to examine the exhumation history of the southern and central HTB using a combination of AFT and ZFT thermochronology, and the existing FT data obtained from previous studies were designed to be complemented.