The northern Sulawesi Island which main body is the North arm and East arm of the island surrounded by the North Sulawesi trench subduction zone and the Palu Kolo sinistral strike slip faul, belongs to the Molucca Sea Plate. Before 5 Ma, the Sula Islands collided with the east arm of Sulawesi Island along the Sorong fault, resulting in the subduction roll- back of the north Sulawesi Trench, causing the north arm of Sulawesi Island to rotate clockwise by about 20°～25°. Meanwhile, about 4 cm/a sinistral strike slip occurred on the Palu- Koro fault in the West. In this paper, the comprehensive geophysical method is used to calculate the three- dimensional temperature, velocity and viscosity characteristics in this area. It is considered that the crust in the northern Sulawesi Island is mainly brittle deformation in the process of sinistral strike slip and subduction retreat. As the subduction zone of the north arm forms a southward inclined weak layer in the crust, a combination of brittle and ductile deformation is formed in the Moho surface and the topographic “mirror image” area. The mantle deformation is ductile, and the upper mantle low vs or weak rheological layer with a depth of about 100 km is the main control layer of mantle ductile deformation. Under the dynamic background of the continuous movement of the surrounding plate boundary, the Northern Sulawesi Island is dominated by contraction or extension on the crustal scale and rotational deformation on the lithosphere scale.