Abstract: Continental margin marks the principal locus of past and present lithospheric deformation."Rupturing Continental Lithosphere" plans, focusing on the geological process of the continental rifting, are mainly promoted by American MARGINS workshop. This paper expatiates on the principal problems and the methods in research. RCL programs will establish the extension modeling for continental lithosphere and the sedimentation history, using all kinds of geophysical data and with the help of geological, geochemical, petrological and geodetic studies,and make reasonable interpretation to the forming mechanism, the driving forces of rifting initiation, and the evolvement of the thermo-mechanical systems and so on. In the end, this paper takes the research on the California/Salton Trough as an example to illuminate the methods and questions in ‘RCL’ programs.