Abstract: In the western part of Yanqi basin, both receiving and shooting conditions are poor, as the surface is mainly covered by area with outcropped rocks, stone desert and very thick low deceleration zone. The overthrust nappes underground also add complexity to seismic exploration. Several seismic explorations have been carried out before, but the structural imaging problem remains unsolved. Forward modeling method in ray tracing theory is used in this 2D seismic exploration to study the impacts of various parameters on structural imaging and the shooting parameters are optimized in combination with the quantitative a-nalysis of experiment results. Processing of the acquired seismic data gives out a clear image of the thrust nappes with distinct thrusting break points and fractured surface.