## 6 Conclusions  
1. Thermal anomalies are caused by extrusion thrust, the plastic deformation of gypsum-salt rock, and rapid deposition or erosion in the Kuqa Depression, all of which have had a significant influence on the heat flow and source rock maturity evolution history of the area. Numerous thrust faults have developed in the northern slope zone, where source rock maturity is the highest. Affected by rapid and deep burial, the source rocks in the southern slope zone and the deep sag zone became mature. The presence of a thick gypsum-salt rock layer with high thermal conductivity facilitated the fast heat transfer of the underlying strata, thus retarding the hydrocarbon generation process of the source rocks, which is conducive to oil and gas accumulation in the late stage. 2. A new understanding of the hydrocarbon generation and thermal evolution of the source rocks in the eastern Kuqa Depression has been obtained, mainly by simulating the thermal evolution history of the compressional structural section through the TD-2 well. The source rocks in the northern slope zone became mature in the early stage, but their maturation stagnated in the later stage as a result of extrusion and uplift. The source rocks in the central anticline zone, the southern slope zone, and the deep sag zone were at low maturation levels during the period between the Jurassic and Paleogene and reached a mature-to-highly mature stage after the deposition of the Nij and N1_2k formations. The main hydrocarbon generation periods in the eastern Kuqa Depression are the late Neogene and Quaternary, and the main hydrocarbon generation stratum is the J1y formation. The cumulative hydrocarbon generation of mudstone has been significantly greater than that of carbonaceous mudstone and coal before the deposition of the N2k formation, but the cumulative hydrocarbon generation of coal is the largest at present. Figure 14: Hydrocarbon accumulation saturation of the reservoir and the different lithologic source rocks in different zones of the AA’ section at present in the eastern Kuqa Depression. (**a**) The histogram is formed by the ratio of the saturation of the reservoir and the different lithologic source rocks to the total saturation; (**b**) the histogram is composed of normalized saturation ratios. Hydrocarbon saturation in the reservoir of the Paleogene, Cretaceous, J1Y formation, and J1a formation accounts for 55.13% of the total, and the other hydrocarbons have accumulated in the source rocks, especially mudstone in the deep sag zone and coal in the northern slope zone. Except for the deep sag zone, the hydrocarbon abundance of the other zones is high, and it has mainly accumulated in the reservoirs, especially in the central anticline zone. In the southern slope zone and the deep sag area, where the tectonic activity is weak, the stratum formation is horizontal; there are no major developed structural traps apart from a small number of lithologic oil and gas reservoirs. In the central anticline zone, the effective superposition of an excellent reservoir and thick gypsum-salt cap rock makes the area a favorable site for oil and gas accumulation. After hydrocarbon generation in the northern slope area source rocks, oil and gas migrated to anticline traps along sandstone transport layers and faults. This is confirmed by the recent Tudong-2 gas field discovery in the central anticline zone. Our model may provide further exploration of fault-related traps in the northern part of the northern slope zone. Methodology--J.L. ; software--J.L. and Y.L. ; resources--W.Y. ; Writing--original draft--K.J; writing--review and editing--[PERSON], J.L. and K.L. ; project administration--X.Y. ; funding acquisition--[PERSON]. ([PERSON]) and [PERSON] ([PERSON]). All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This research was funded by the China-Saudi Arabia Petroleum Energy 'Belt and Road' Joint Laboratory Construction and Research (2022 YFE0203400); the Major Science and Technology Project of PetroChina, Grant No.