The model proposed here involves, initially, in the Middle Permian, accumulation in the oceanward part of an accretionary complex as Palaeotethys began subducting beneath Indochina/East Malaya. This regime, it is proposed, continued until about the end of the Middle Triassic when Sibumasu collided with Indochina/East Malaya bringing an end to subduction. But as crustal shortening continued into the Late Triassic a foredeep basin formed in front of the now-inactive subduction zone and accretionary complex, and the youngest part of the Semanggol Formation was deposited. During this final stage the whole package of rocks comprising those in the accretionary complex and those deposited in the foredeep basin underwent lateral compression resulting in a thrust complex.
The Semanggol Formation and its Thailand correlatives occupy part of a N-S belt of imbricately-thrust, deeper-water, sediments which include slope-deposited Carboniferous and Lower Permian beds. That belt is interpreted as a series of thrust slices juxtaposing rocks of different ages, referred to here as the Songkhla-Semanggol terrane. Its western boundary is a N-S line of inferred thrusting which coincides with a major westward facies change to platform carbonates of Middle Permian to Late Triassic age, called here the Rattaphum-Kodiang tectonic line.