The Yangtze platform in south China formed a stable palaeogeographic element from the Late Proterozoic to the end of the Middle Triassic with deposition of shallow-water carbonates during much of this time. A portion of the Yangtze platform in south-central Guizhou drowned at the transition from Permian to Triassic, as the south-adjacent Nanpanjiang basin encroached about 100 km northward, but a new, stable platform margin was established that persisted through the Early and Middle Triassic. This long history as a stable carbonate platform ended at the transition from the Ladinian to the Carnian. The latest Ladinian rocks, the Yangliujing Formation, are 490 m of shoaling-upward carbonate cycles of grapestone and bioclastic grainstone, fenestral limestone, and stromatolitic dolomudstone, commonly overprinted by extensive subaerial diagenesis. The beginning of the Carnian is marked by a rapid transition to medium-dark-grey, nodular lime mudstones containing ammonoids, conodonts and thin-shelled bivalves, the Zhuganpo Formation. The upper part of this thin pelagic limestone contains many muddy intraclasts, some slightly bored and encrusted, indicating incipient cementation. The overlying Wayao Formation is a condensed black shale with thin interbeds of dark-grey, manganiferous lime mudstone near the base. Ammonoids, conodonts, thin-shelled bivalves, and articulated crinoid stems are abundant. Fine-grained greywacke with sole marks forms prominent bundles within grey, calcareous shale in the overlying Laishike Formation. Ammonoids and thin-shelled bivalves occur sporadically in this 810-m-thick unit. Calcareous shale with thicker-shelled bivalves and packages of cleaner, coarser-grained sandstone characterize the Banan Formation, 460 m thick. The sandstone units generally coarsen and thicken upward, with ripples, medium-scale trough cross-beds, and rare U-tube burrows. Quartzose, coal-bearing siliciclastics 690 m thick form the overlying Huobachong Formation. Thick-bedded, cross-stratified sandstone and conglomerates are amalgamated into thinning- and fining-upward intervals separated by blocky mudstones. This fining-upward motif continues into the overlying Erqiao Formation, but coals are lacking. At the beginning of the Late Triassic (Carnian) the previously stable Yangtze platform, on which peritidal limestones were forming, was drowned and covered by dark lime mud that was cemented into intraclasts and nodular lime mudstone. Black shale and manganiferous pelagic limestone formed a condensed interval, recording maximum submergence. Turbidite sandstone and shale of the Laishike flysch filled the accommodation space of 800 m created during drowning of the Yangtze platform, leading to deposition of shoaling-upward shelf and paralic sandstones and shales, but without significant carbonate production. The succeeding fining-upward siliciclastics are interpreted as braided-stream deposits with coals that mark minor marine incursions. The shallow-shelf and braided-stream deposits form a molasse 1500 m thick. It was apparently derived from the west, in contrast to the underlying flysch where palaeocurrent directions are from the north or northeast. The entire Yangtze platform became emergent during the Late Triassic and was never submerged again. Subtle local differences in the drowning sequences indicate differential subsidence and suggest that tectonics played a role in the death of the Yangtze platform.