Abstract: The Jiaojia fault zone in the Jiaodong Peninsula, a giant gold metallogenic belt, which both conduits and hosts ore deposits, is formed under the superimposed tectonic setting of the destruction of the North China Craton and the West Pacific tectonic domain, the southern segment of which is extensively covered by Quaternary deposits, and no economic ore bodies have been identified to date despite the deployment of comprehensive geophysical-geochemical surveys and extensive drilling programs. To address this issue, this study clarifies the segmented structure of the Jiaojia Fault Zone by means of surface and underground adit mapping, and further reveals the favorable deep-seated metallogenic targets in the southern segment by applying stress transfer modelling. The results indicate that the Jiaojia Fault Zone consists of a dilatant fault bridge, i.e. the middle-northern fault-segment to the north of Xincheng, the main fault-segment in the middle-southern part from Xincheng to Houzhao, and the fault tip in the southern fault-segment to the south of Houzhao. In the central-southern segment, positive Coulomb failure stress changes (+∆CFS) on the footwall of the main Jiaojia fault plane exhibit a striking spatial correlation with the distribution of known gold deposits. In the southern segment, south of Houzhao, the approximately circular positive ∆CFS zone with a diameter of 3–5 km constitutes a high-permeability belt, which is characterized by clustered aftershock networks and protracted elevated fluid flux, and thus delineated as a priority prospecting target. Based on these insights, a total of eight drill holes have been drilled to date, six of which have successfully intersected gold ore bodies. Therefore, we propose an effective method for mineral exploration as to the lode gold deposits in the Quaternary covered area, which is to, firstly, identify the fault segments of the regional-scale large faults with high-displacement and the locations for paleo-rupture arrest (such as fault bridges, fault bends and tips), then, calculate the ∆CFS in surrounding crust resulting from the main rupture activity by applying the stress-transfer modeling, and lastly predict the locations of high-permeability zones corresponding to the regions of increased ∆CFS and thus the new targets for gold exploration.