The development of deep water deposition models may largely represent an important advance in research on deep water deposition and their major directions. Since the appearance and establishment of the turbidity current theory, great advances have been made in research on deep water deposition in more than 60 years, accompanying the progress in techniques of deep water hydrocarbon exploration. Meanwhile, there were two major development stages of deep water deposition models, i. e. Bouma sequence and the submarine fan model based on the turbidity current theory and the slope deposition model based on debris flow. The issues of turbidite, Bouma sequence, sandy debris flow and high-density turbidity current have always been the prevailing focuses and difficulties of arguments, and the extensive discussion about these issues would indeed indicate the complexity of deep water deposition and its inherent mechanism. The research on deep water deposition can result in more systematical and objective analysis and prediction of deep water reservoir rocks from 3 aspects, i. e. source-channel-affluxion, and continuous improvement of the deep water deposition theory in practice, only when a lot of external factors such as tectonics, climate, provenance and sea level fluctuation are comprehensively considered.