face="Times New Roman">Within an elliptical,face="Times New Roman">W-face="Times New Roman">E trending Hercynian granitoid in the Northern Mountain,face="Times New Roman">northwestern Gansu Province three main sets of dike swarms were recognized. The second set has a majority of dikes throughout the granitoid. It is mafic in composition,face="Times New Roman">and distributed in a curved pattern. The dike swarm in the set changes the strike gradually from the north-face="Times New Roman">northeast in the north to the north-face="Times New Roman">northwest in the south. This curved pattern may be ascribed to two possible mechanisms,face="Times New Roman">multi-face="Times New Roman">layer buckling and local stress-face="Times New Roman">field perturbation. It suggests the incomplete welding of the sides of the fault by the granitic intrusion along it,face="Times New Roman">which afterwards permitted the reactivation of the fault,face="Times New Roman">probably due to the relatively independent movement of the faulted blocks,face="Times New Roman">as a dextral transcurrent fault.