The Hoh Xil basin, which is the largest Tertiary sedimentary basin in the hinterland of the Tibet plateau, isbounded on the north margin by the Kunlun Mountains and the South Kunlun suture zone, and on the south mar-gin by the Tanggula Mountains and the Kangbataqing fault. The basin contains a Tertiary sediment pile of approx-imately 5.4 km thick of fluvial mudstone, sanadstone, and conglomerate and 0.4 km thick of limestone, which wasreported to have a closed relationship with the continental collision and early uplift of the Tibet plateau. From low-er to upper, the Tertiary sediments include the Early Eocene to Early Oligocene Fenghuoshan Group, the EarlyOligocene Yaxicuo Group, and the Early Miocene Wudaoliang Group. Here we clarify the facies analysis of theYaxicuo Group, which was magnetostratigraphically dated as 32.0 - 30.0 Ma, and discuss its paleoclimatic signifi-cance.rn The Yaxicuo Group is 670.0 m thick and consists mainly of violet alternating sandstone and mudstone withintercalated gray layered and tubercular gypsolith. The standard section GG2 of the Yaxicuo Group is situated inthe southern part of the Wudaoliang area of the Hoh Xil basin. The Yaxicuo Group consists mainly of lacustrine fa-cies, but contains fluvial facies in the lower-middle part. The lacustrine facies includes shore, shallow lake, andsalt lake subfacies. They are characterized by coarsening and thickening upward of sandstone and siltstone. Thefluvial facies consists of point bars, natural levees, and flood plains and is characterized by sandstone and conglom-erate that fine and thin upward. Paleocurrent directions were measured from sedimentary structures of, for exam-ples, lamination, planar cross- bedding, parallel bedding, and climbing - ripple cross - lamination. They indicatethat the depocenter of the Hoh Xil basin was migrated eastward and northward during the period of 32.0 - 30.0Ma. The very thin stratified and nodulated types of gypsolith started to suddenly abundantly develop in the lowerof the Yaxicuo Group at about 32.0 Ma ago. However, only a few layers of very thin stratified of gypsolith wasformed in the lower part of the Fenghuoshan Group, whereas the other parts of sediments belong to fluvial and la-custrine environment with normal salinity. Therefore, the development of the gypsolith at least reflects the dryingevent in the earliest Oligocene, which was recorded in the northern Tibetan plateau. The paleoclimatic event couldbe correlated well to the global cooling and drying events of the earliest Oligocene.%可可西里盆地是青藏高原腹地最大的第三纪沉积盆地，第三纪沉积地层包括早始新世－早渐新世风火山群、早渐新世雅西措群、早中新世五道梁群。其中，雅西措群为紫红色、砖红色泥岩、含膏泥岩与紫红色粉砂岩、细砂岩韵律互层，夹白色石膏薄层和石膏结核层，沉积厚度为670.0 m，沉积环境主要由河流和湖泊环境组成，并以湖泊环境为主，古水流方向反映盆地沉积中心逐渐向东向北迁移。雅西措群中石膏层的突然大量出现发生在底部地层距今约32.0 Ma，体现了渐新世最早期的全球变冷变干事件在青藏高原北部的记录。
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