The traditional heavy mineral analysis is a fundamental and cheap provenance tracing method for clastic sediments. It provides comprehensive provenance information and irreplaceable background data for the single-mineral methods of provenance tracing. There are new progresses in basic theory and technology in recent years， but a systematic summary is still lacking. This paper summarizes the progress and development trend of heavy mineral analysis， which is shown in the following aspects： \mathrm{①} The impact of factors such as weathering， hydraulic sorting， diagenetic modification on heavy minerals during transport， deposition， diagenesis， and exposure； \mathrm{②} Data acquisition processes of heavy mineral analysis （sampling， pre-processing， selection of grain size fraction， counting） and issues that should be paid attention to； \mathrm{③} How to analyze， process and apply heavy mineral data， including calculating commonly used heavy mineral indexes and sediment budgets， and carrying out bias correction； \mathrm{④} The new progress and development trend of theory and technology in the heavy mineral analysis. It is believed that automatic mineral identification by machine and the combination of heavy mineral analysis method and single-mineral method are the development direction of provenance tracing based on heavy mineral analysis.